Parabola of Mystery
by SymOfNight
Summary: Strange story about the Gundam boys and their Gundams. not much more can be said. Watch for language and innuendo, subject to change.
1. Chapter 1

_Disclaimer: I do not own much of anything; Gundam Wing is pretty much at the top of that list and RedvsBlue is near the bottom, alphabetically speaking (This is not a crossover, RvB and GW would probably kill me) _

_Warnings: This story may, meaning will, contain shounen-ai, all out weirdness, characters out of character, and those who adore Relena should look away. (She's on my top ten least favorite characters of all time list, no offense to those that like her, it's a personal choice) _

**Parabola of Mystery**

It was after colony…who the Hell cares? All you really need to know is the relative age of our five emotionally challenged pilots and you can pretty much figure it out. For reasons unexplained, mainly just because it's the most convenient and there doesn't have to be a change in scenery, this story takes place on the Earth. No specifics, just pick a location and let your imagination take over from there. If you lack an imagination then just look out into your backyard and picture the pilots there. If you lack a backyard then the author doesn't know what to tell you.

The five pilots all lived in the same location: a large, overworked building with just enough room that the young men more prone to psychosis wouldn't kill the more…outspoken members. To put it plainly, Duo lived on the other side of the building and several soundproof barriers were securely placed to prevent his dulcet tones from reaching the peaceful calm of the other side. The future is quite nifty. There was also a hangar in this apt living space.

On the day in which the story picks back up, Duo spent most of his early morning trying to undo the heavy restraints that prevented him from getting into the farther part of the complex and therefore to the kitchen. An unknown soul had taken upon himself to erect a veritable shrine to annoyance-prevention, chaining and securing the door with five locks. He even electrified the metal, something the braided-pilot figured out the moment he put his hand on the knob. His hair was so heavy that it didn't raise but his body jerked with the sudden charge and he fell backwards, wind-milling in the air for a long moment like a silent film hero before he hit the floor. Duo screwed his face up at the offensive barrier and took to screaming at the top of his lungs, strewing together curses that have scarcely been heard since the 1950's.

On the 'other side' Quatre especially felt his housemate's pain and his head swiveled instinctively toward the door when he heard Duo's numerous profanities. Trowa was literally unmoved; he merely turned the page in the book and continued reading. Heero typed on his laptop compulsively and didn't acknowledge the noise with more then a smug half-smile. Wufei was nowhere to be seen. Quatre wavered in obvious indecision before he tapped on the table and crossed one leg over the other, like that would somehow make it better. No one noticed.

Duo's incessant screams grew louder a few minutes later and Quatre appeared determined to take action. He turned his eyes to Heero and cleared his throat.

_Clack Clack Clack _

"Uh, Heero?" he tried.

_Clack Clack Clack _

"I think Duo's been stranded outside for long enough…" It came out as more of a squeaky question then a statement. Heero lifted his eyes for a split second before he shrugged and typed again.

"You are the one who put that stuff up, right? I would take it apart myself but I'm afraid that force would only set off some sort of bomb."

No answer again, but the clacking paused with the word 'bomb' before resuming much faster then before. Quatre sighed and headed toward the door. Duo's noise sounded almost pathetic now. The inexplicably blonde Quatre hit the door three times with the toe of his shoe to prevent shock. Duo quieted down instantly.

"Sorry Duo, I don't know how to open the door," Quatre yelled.

"Damn that son of a…how am I supposed to eat…or SHOWER?" Duo demanded.

"How about you just go around?" Wufei asked back in annoyance as he too entered the room. He had a towel draped over his shoulders, it could be assumed that he just came from the shower, it was so hard to tell with his blindingly-shiny hair. Quatre backed away from the door and smiled.

"…I hadn't thought of that…" Duo admitted. Neither had Quatre. Trowa had, but he decided to keep it to himself while Heero not-so-secretly hoped that the bomb he rigged would go off. It was on Duo's side of the door, after all.

Duo emerged from the front of the building a few minutes later with his hair disheveled and he brandished his toothbrush like a saber toward the Japanese pilot. The clacking never stopped. Duo glared at Heero for a long moment before he regained his usual composure and before long, three rounds around the room to be precise, he was back to his grinning self. Quatre went back to his seat though it was unclear what exactly he was waiting for while Duo pranced about the kitchen getting superhero-themed cereal. Why he would want to eat his cartoon idols was beyond anyone's ability to comprehend or care. This whole action sequence was just a boring segway to the next conversation.

"One point for Heero this morning," Duo said happily as he energetically threw his bowl on the table. He had poured the milk so close to the top of the bowl that it naturally spilled over the side and in a poetic arc right onto Heero's computer. He glared, snatched up a napkin, they haphazardly had stacks in the middle of the table for such incidents, and wiped down his keyboard without a word.

"Two for sheer principle," Wufei said from his position by the counter.

Duo stuck out his tongue and went back to shoveling superheroes into his mouth. Quatre rested his hands neatly in his lap and from the look on his face, his mind was faraway. Therefore there was no conversation at the table since Duo hadn't paused in his insane eating to speak.

Heero's fingers paused over the keyboard. It was a bit of a mystery as to what he was always doing on the computer nearly twenty-four hours a day, especially since he was constantly typing. Duo's theory was that he constantly blogged and chatted with other mission-oriented-psychos but since he wouldn't let anyone get behind him all they could do was speculate. This sudden breath between the respective symphony of white noise caused all, save Trowa, to look up.

"Yo, Heero, what's up?" Duo asked, shock livid on his face.

This was due to the fact that Heero himself was stunned. His eyes were wide and staring at the screen before him and his fingers hovered over the keys, stretched at an impossible angle to reach the farthest letters. He didn't answer immediately but a few seconds later returned back the way he was. Well, to be honest his eyes still had a certain wariness to him and his mouth was only a firm line of tension. Quatre predictably was the first to ask.

"Do you mind telling us what shocked you?"

Heero put his computer on the table and crossed his legs in thought. This sudden, unexpected action even had Trowa coming up from air as his eyes moved from the book to the spandex-loving pilot.

"Way to build the tension," Duo commented as he pushed his finished bowl to the side. He was far too lazy and interested in Heero's sudden change to go and put his bowl in the sink.

"…I was just sent a message."

More long, excruciating silence. Wufei tapped his foot against the opposite counter in impatience.

"…And?" They asked, not at all in unison and with dissonant, half-exasperated voices.

"It's from Relena. She's coming here."

All faces registered horror with this sudden news. Relena was coming and with her the entire entourage of weird and entirely undesirable people that seemed to follow in her stalker wake. Duo got to his feet and tossed his braid over his shoulder before going to the still-locked-door. He pulled on the handle and hammered against it with his hand. Quatre looked over at him with a small amount of concern.

"What are you doing now?"

"Trying to set off the bomb so I can at least put myself out of my misery."

"I never thought I'd say this, but I'll help," Heero said. All was silence.

_Please do not deeply criticize my terrible writing; this is for fun after all. Thanks for reading and there will probably be more when I have more time. _


	2. Chapter 2

_Warning: You probably should know this from the first chapter but I'll put it once again: this story will contain characters not acting like themselves, like a bunch of evil twins all in one place, Relena bashing, general oddness, and shounen-ai eventually because who seriously thinks Duo's straight? _

_Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing so I definitely cannot take ownership to any individual character, idea, mobile suit, death glare, drama, colony, misguided pacifistic tendency, suicidal mission, opinion, mid-90's fashion statement, one-liner, or any other intangible thing that I could possibly take from the show. I think that it's understood that no one claims ownership to things like this because who wants to get sued for taking someone else's creative property? I can just imagine the one guy who was really counting on being considered the all-powerful creator of Harry Potter. Really now, it's actually a mark of how sad we are that we go to all the trouble of writing something like fanfiction. When you think about it there's only so much that you can do with a story like this since the characters and their world aren't yours to begin with. It also makes people nervous because who knows what this crazy writer is going to do with the characters they love oh-so-much? Well, this gets longer and longer so you should probably just go down to the actual text now. Come on, go ahead. The writing may be mediocre and rife with grammatical anomalies but at least it's better then this. As a matter of fact you could have just stopped once you saw the words "I don't own Gundam Wing". Hey, I said it again so I guess I double don't own it. Still here? Nothing much more to say. Look at the next line. That's it! Enjoy the insanity. _

**Parabola of Mystery **

Chapter Two

Quatre managed to convince the two pilots that they would be wasting their lives by blowing themselves up and that they could always just usher Relena off as soon as she arrived. This brought some hope to their otherwise terrible lives, or at least enough so that Quatre could get Trowa to dismantle the bomb. After it ended, Heero and Duo were left with a sort of empty feeling inside. Heero went right back to typing, in his room, in the closet, with three locks and another bomb on the door while Duo just retired to his Gundam. He at least had the knowledge that if Relena were coming then she would simply gloss over him. While she stalked the group it was only to get to Heero. She probably couldn't remember all of their names. Duo imagined that her only references to them were 'braided one who shot Heero', 'Tall, quiet one who rescued Heero', 'blonde one who brings Heero to a set location, and 'Chinese one who didn't have much to do with Heero'. Thus it was good to be braided-one who shot Heero.

As for the rest of the unfortunate five, Quatre ignored the fact that Heero had confined himself and drank tea as he played an ongoing game of Monopoly with Trowa.

Wufei also sought out refuge in his Gundam. Duo could hear him speaking to her even in the perpetually loud hangar. Duo putted around with Deathscythe a bit before he had to walk over toward Nataku to speak with Wufei. He really couldn't stand the silence for too long, it was unbearable especially since Wufei was speaking himself. That just meant he wanted company, right?

The braided pilot hopped around Nataku's space to initially get noticed. Wufei had his back to this and either didn't notice or didn't care.

"Hey Wufei!"

No answer. Duo cupped his hands around his mouth to make his voice even louder, not that he needed it. By now it should have been obvious that Wufei was just ignoring him.

"COME ON WUFEI! I'M TALKING TO YOU! WU-MAN! WUFFIE! WU…"

A mysterious wrench sailed down and conked Duo on the head. He gripped the now aching spot angrily and kicked Nataku's foot to get Wufei's attention. That also didn't work.

"So they aren't the same person after all," Duo said under his breath.

"Someone there?" Wufei asked, finally turning around.

"Oh yeah, you hear _that_," Duo said as he pulled himself to sit on the Gundam's foot. He could feel hatred beams from Wufei's eyes since he dared to touch his beloved hulk of metal. He, predictably, ignored them with glee.

"What do you want? Is that woman here yet?"

Duo shook his head. "No. I just wanted to talk for a minute and you know it's useless to interrupt Quatre and Trowa when they're playing Monopoly. It's been three weeks and they're still not any closer to finishing."

"…Why would I even want to know that?" Wufei asked. If there were a sound for rolling his eyes, he would have made it.

"Fine, then you don't even have to listen, I'll just pretend you are."

"Somehow your words violently tear through anyway, regardless of whether your victim wants to hear them or not. I makes me want to kill you…slowly…in your sleep."

"Okay enough honesty for today. At least I know you'd make good on your threats. Not like Heero…"

Wufei rolled his eyes without any sound.

"I mean he's threatened to kill Relena at least hundreds of times by now and all he ever does is cave. What kind of girl chases a suicidal, emotionally challenged terrorist around the globe just to try and get him to make good on his threat? 'I'll kill you', yeah right."

If Wufei cared enough to say something, it probably would have been along the lines of 'just go write him a love letter already and kill Relena yourself'. But saying those words would have meant acknowledging that he listened. Again, too much trouble and it would leave him feeling distinctly like a woman. Or a weakling, but mostly a woman.

Duo leapt off of Nataku and he pulled his braid over his shoulder to play with it idly. Wufei turned back to working on his Gundam. It was unclear as to what he was actually doing other then wiping down the control panel time after time.

"Fine, I'll go bug someone else…" Duo trailed off as a chill rushed through him. He let go of his hair and did a flat out run to the far side of the hangar. Duo launched himself over the railing to a rickety metal staircase that led up to what used to be an overseer's office. It ran right in front of the large windows that faced out to the street, tinted and reflective so that you could only see out and not in. He pressed his nose to the dusty window and immediately repelled back with a sneeze.

That still didn't deter his mind for the horrible sight he saw outside of their building.

Duo slid down the breaking banister and landed catlike on the walkway. He rushed past Nataku, calling out to Wufei and then back through the house.

"THE PINK CAR OF DOOM HAS ARRIVED! SAVE Y OURSELVES!"

Quatre and Trowa slowly broke away from their game. The blonde caught Duo by the arm as he made an obvious beeline toward Heero's room.

"Go back to the hangar. It's the safest place…" He tried to sound as nice as always but there was a tangible fear in Quatre's eyes. He pushed Duo back toward the direction he came and then turned to his other friend.

"You think we should let her in?"

Trowa shrugged. "I expect she could get in even without our help."

"Good point."

Quatre moved to the front door and dismantled the security system, the lasers, the explosives, the locks, and finally the bucket of green paint perched above the front door for emergencies before following Trowa, who had picked up the game, back toward the hanger after Duo.

A black wind blew through the streets of the city, especially around a large, seemingly abandoned building where Relena knew the Gundam Pilots were housed. This same wind seemed to follow in the wake of an expensive car that looked, honestly, like Barbie blew up on top of it. The vehicle came to a stop in front of the building, making it stand out even more in a strangely unexplainable way.

A man with heavy gray eyebrows that covered his strangely invisible eyes rushed out from the driver's seat. The look on his face was one that easily said 'kill me please' only until he opened the door to the backseat, where a young woman got out. She wore what could only be described as 'noble clothes' all white and blue. Her blonde hair was pulled back to reveal her frighteningly intense face. She adapted a no-nonsense look as she locked onto the building. It was certainly not what you would expect of a girl who was meeting with the guy she liked.

Relena tried the door to find the knob turned easily under her hand and, surprisingly, nothing lit up or blew up with her opening it. She stepped into the entryway and wrinkled her nose at the sight of how old and broken down the building was. The space wasn't too dirty or cluttered but to her eyes it must have been Hell itself. She pushed on past the foyer and into the kitchen area. There were two hallways, one to the right where she could hear hysterical sobs and the other, to the left, was perfectly silent.

Relena put her hands on her hips and turned to the right. If he wasn't there then she could get his whereabouts from the others by any means necessary.

The strange crying stopped the moment her visage was seen on the walkway above the hanger, level with 01. The young woman managed a small smile at the mobile suit before she stood with her feet shoulder length apart and stared down intensely at the three visible pilots. No one looked like he had been crying so the sobs had to have been put on as a deterrent or perhaps a weird way of calling her. The braided pilot looked up at her, shielding his eyes with a hand like he were trying to block out the sun.

"My, what a strapping young lad," Duo said under his breath, which was a casual tone for most people. Relena glared a glare that said 'while I may be a pacifist I can still have you killed'.

"I am averting my eyes," he responded and turned his attention to Trowa and Quatre's game.

"Where's Heero?" Relena asked.

"Not sure. I think he said something about killing himself and then he crashed through the window and ran off to probably take on an army of hobos with sporks," Duo explained, still averting his eyes.

"I don't want to play your games," she responded.

"Why not? Monopoly's the best."

"Is he in his room?"

"I told you, he's in a knife-fight with monkeys."

"I'll come down there."

"He's sitting in his closet. You have to enter 564ILUVWING to disarm it," said Trowa.

Relena nodded at him before turning on her heel and moving back to the hallway from before. She could have sworn she heard a small cheer far behind her.

There were six doors, all in a row, in the silent hall where Heero was presumed fearing. Relena shut her eyes and opened them ten seconds later. She turned and went mechanically to the second door on the left. Her Heero sense was right as when she was inside the cold, dark room, she could faintly hear the sounds of typing from inside the closet. She came up to the door and all sounds ceased. Relena allowed herself as smile and she typed in the code.

"Shit, I'll kill him."

"Heero!" Relena said joyously as the door slid open and the pilot rolled out past her. She approached him, not pausing to even consider the gun he pointed in her general direction. Well, he had made the threat so many times that it could almost be considered playful flirting between the two of them.

"I don't have time to talk to you today. We have…a mission."

It was hard to tell if that was for dramatic tension or if he had just thought of it. Relena's jubilant smile faded to a scowl and she put her hand up to try and move the barrel aside. Heero flipped expertly backwards into the hall before he broke out into a run toward the hangar. Relena followed.

"Where are you going, Heero?"

"It's an important mission! I can't tell you or I'll have to kill you!"

"Go ahead and kill me!"

"DAMN! Look, it's just for security purposes and I really don't want you following me there."

"You said 'us' just a minute ago."

Heero tripped over the Monopoly box situated in the hallway but he recovered quickly.

"I meant us as in the other pilots too."

"I'd be happy to come along."

Heero emerged over the hangar. The now interested pilots all watched. Even Wufei tore himself away from Windexing the display screens to observe the scene. Heero let himself fall over the railing and down to the ground. Unfortunately he landed in the middle of the monopoly board, effectively scattering the pieces and cards. Now he had a psycho and two angry pilots on his hands.

"We have a mission," he yelled.

"What is it?" Wufei asked, actually sounding interested.

"I'll explain later, just load your Gundams onto the carriers!" Heero urged as he moved to the second, smaller hangar where they had three carriers suited to moving the mobile suits. Duo looked quite amused until he saw Relena heading toward them.

"I agree with Heero, let's hurry. We're pressed for time as it is!"

Like she had her own anti-pilot radius, wherever Relena moved among the panicked pilots they were always at least ten feet away no matter which one she tried to approach. She eventually just stood in Wing Zero's path with her arms crossed and the same scary look on her face. That is certainly not an exaggeration; she could kill kittens with that expression.

Soon all the other pilots had loaded their Gundams and Wing was the only one left. Heero approached it from the back and scaled his mobile suit manually just to avoid being around her. He tried to ignore her as he activated his Gundam and moved harmlessly toward the second hangar. Relena put her hands on her hips and yelled out angrily.

"You can try and run from me but I'll always find you!" she declared.

Heero breathed a sigh of relief as the large door careened to a shut behind his Gundam. His gaze now focused on the four pilots, waiting to help him quickly put his Gundam on the plane.

There was no mission. Heero had just been up to his normal mysterious internet tricks when Relena had come upon his closet's sanctuary. The only thing he could think of was a mission and he had been dumb enough to say that the others were coming along too. Now all he could do was pilot one of the carriers silently and try and think of something plausible to tell the other pilots about this 'mission'. Anything other then he was scared of being cornered by a girl would do.


	3. Chapter 3

_Warning: I forgot to put language as one of the warnings so that makes the count Relena-based criticism, shounen-ai if you squint at this point in story, general oddness, characters not acting like themselves, and language…again. _

_Disclaimer: It gets tiring to do this every chapter and I'm only on three. Okay so: Me. Not. Own. Gundam. Wing. That's me as in I, do not as in have nothing to do with creating, and Gundam Wing as in the show started in Japan by people who I am too lazy to look up. Clear as mud? Good, let's move on. _

**Parabola of Mystery **

Chapter Three

"So Heero, where are we going?" This time it was Trowa who asked but everyone had at least five rounds on him at this point. Heero cursed the little vids at the corner of his vision that pictured the other three annoyed Gundam pilots. He currently rode with Trowa while the others were in the following carriers. He had taken the lead because, naturally, he was the only one who knew where they were going. Spandex-boy couldn't be more lost. He saw that they were just flying over the pick-your-favorite ocean which meant that he really would have to settle on a direction rather then just flying randomly different ways whenever he felt like turning. He had a sneaking suspicion that Relena was following him so he did his best try and shake this imaginary pursuit off.

Trowa cocked his head to the side, showing a hint of impatience where the others had completely lost it. He had turned off the audio a few minutes ago just to keep his sanity. If he were capable of being amused at this point he would have laughed at the strange faces they were making. Duo's mouth never stopped moving…he was kinda cute without the noise.

"Don't tell me you don't know…" Trowa started. Heero didn't bat an eyelash.

"I'll take that as a ye..."

"We're going to Sorolaff," Heero replied shortly, cutting him off. Trowa crossed his arms and probably arched an eyebrow. It was hard to tell with the hair.

"Sorolaff? Where's that located?"

"In Asia."

"That's not an Asian name."

"It's a colony. Who are we to pass judgment on their culture?"

"You're making that up."

Heero gave Trowa his predictable death glare, "I'm just relaying the information that I was told. We're to go to Sorolaff and retrieve an artifact before the enemy does."

Trowa leaned forward and turned the audio back on.

"DAMN DAMN DAMN DAMN DAMN DAMN"

"Would you please turn it back on…oh…"

Those last two came from Duo and Quatre respectively. The blonde pilot clutched his ears and was half out of the screen. He was apparently leaning as far away from the braided pilot as possible. Duo continued screaming 'damn', even though it was clear that the sound was back.

"Shut up, Duo, I've managed to get some information out of him," Trowa said calmly. Duo shut his mouth.

"We're going to…Sorolaff…an…Asian country that Heero's going to lead us to. Apparently we have to find some ancient artifact."

Duo perked right up, "sounds remotely questy. What are we retrieving?"

Heero shrugged and kept his eyes straight ahead.

"Sorolaff? Is that even a real country?" Quatre mused.

"He claims it is," Trowa replied.

"Why did we have to hurry?" Wufei asked. Of all of them he was the least interested.

"Because the enemy is also after the artifact," Heero lied.

"Enemy?"

The young man in charge of this fiasco tightened his grip on the wheel. Great now he had to think of an enemy. Well, he had already struck out with the mythical kingdom of Sorolaff so he may as well bs some more.

"It's a fringe OZ organization that's just now had enough members and firepower to surface."

All the other pilots rolled their eyes in unison. Well, it may not have been in unison since there was a three second delay with the vid screens.

Duo took the plunge. "Uh-huh and what's it called?"

"…The Cowardly Lion."

"Very funny. Come on, you just wanted to get away from Relena, didn't you?"

Quatre nodded assent to Duo's claim and Trowa and Wufei weren't too far behind though the latter looked notably pissed.

This was his one chance to clear the air, to come clean, to get it out in the open, to continue trying to think of clichéd phrases in order to avoid actually addressing the topic at hand. Heero shook his head. He could easily admit that the others were dead right about his reasons for rushing them out of the base. The worst thing that could happen was bodily injury from the more violent ones. Hell, he could even try and talk it out with them about his internal fear of Relena. That seemed like the best way out and all they would have to do is go back and he could escape alone to avoid his stalker. Heero's eyes showed his obvious determination as he replied.

"No. The timing of the mission was just convenient. Would I go to all this trouble for Relena? You know I don't bullshit missions."

The answer was no-freaking-way. He would rather blow up again then admit his girl-centered fear aka girlish fear. It was a funny thought though. They were silent all across the board.

"…Sure thing. It's not like I have anything better to do." Duo said.

"I think there's something you aren't telling us, but I know you have your reasons," Quatre added.

"...I'll be pissed if there's nothing there and I still don't accept the Cowardly Lion as a valid enemy," said Wufei.

Trowa didn't say anything but even if he disagreed it wasn't like he could just pick up and leave. Heero gave a small jerk of his head and continued flying. Now they would have to go somewhere in Asia. It had to be secluded, ancient, but convenient enough so that he could find a local treasure or something and make it an important artifact.

"Mission accepted."

Duo let Quatre fly the rest of the way. He was a bit too exhausted, especially since he had spent the entire night before playing an unbeatable video game. You'd think that after all his specialized training and actual epic space fighting that he would be able to master something as simple as Dynasty Warriors. He just kept getting mobbed by all the like-faced lackeys. Duo yawned and stretched out on his stiff and intentionally uncomfortable pilot's seat. He supposed that it was designed as such to torture the men in charge because all designers were evil and they probably had some obscure belief that if someone was left idle for too long then they would fall asleep. He showed them, he was asleep in two minutes after he left the flying to Quatre, uncomfortable seat n' all.

Quatre shook Duo awake half-a-second later. The American pilot yawned and slowly opened his eyes. He blinked, looked from side to side through the windshield, and blinked again. All he saw was green, like they were in some sort of Asian or African wilderness. He always got scenery confused.

"Where the Hell are we?"

"Sorolaff," Quatre replied.

"Oh yeah, Heero's imaginary country."

Quatre leaned forward and switched on the video screens again. Heero's grim face greeted them.

"So do we go out in the Gundams?" Quatre asked.

"No. For now I'll just go out in person to assess the situation. Just stay here."

Duo slammed his hand down on the control panel. It wasn't intentional, just a reaction from being off balance when his feet left said panel.

"No freaking way. I'm not gonna sit here all day watching Quatre and Trowa play Old Maid."

"Monopoly"

"At least two of us should go out. Three pilots and five Gundams is more then enough security for the carriers," Duo said.

Heero glared and Wufei's face flickered onscreen.

"I'm coming too. You think I want to watch them play checkers?"

"Monopoly!"

Wufei waved his hand, presumably at Quatre, "I need actual proof that this is a real mission."

Heero waited in consideration for about five seconds before he sighed and nodded. "Fine. Duo and Wufei can come. Trowa and Quatre can stay and play I Spy."

"Old Maid! I mean Monopoly!" Quatre's patience was waning.

"Then it's settled."

As Heero went off, Trowa came back on.

"So do you really want to play Old Maid?"

Quatre slammed his hands on the control panel and it wasn't an accident this time.

"For the last time, Monopoly."

"…I didn't bring it."

"Oh.Then how about Mall Madness?"

Trowa's eye widened. "What?"

"I don't have a deck of cards on me either and Duo keeps a copy of Mall Madness in Deathscythe at all times. I don't really know why."

Trowa shrugged. "Sure, I'll go to your carrier."

Quatre shut down the plane then. They wouldn't need it working since they even doubted the validity of their mission. He listened to make sure that Duo was out of earshot and stood up. "I hate Old Maid."

Wufei leapt down from this high door of his carrier down to the ground. It had taken him a bit longer then the rest of the assessment party to get ready. This was only due to the fact that he was in the process of putting up motion detectors and small bombs all around his beloved Nataku. That and he had to re-gel his hair. He hadn't done enough that morning.

Wufei jogged and easily caught up with Heero and Duo who were halfway out of the semi-clearing where they agreed to meet. He took a breath and immediately gagged. The air was hot and heavy enough that it could probably qualify as a liquid. At least he had dressed lightly. Duo, who was head to toe in black, clawed at his hair and wrapped his braid around his hand. Wufei regarded him with a subtle 'what-the-hell-you-crazy-hyena' look.

"Aaaagh it's too hot, my hair's gonna get all icky," Duo said. That sort of explained his actions. Heero's eyes snapped toward him, he was visibly regretting his move to allow Duo to come along. Out of all of them he was the best off since he was the most scantily clad. Not that he would complain either way.

Wufei and Heero both took the lead and easily pushed the overgrown brush aside as they ventured further into the jungle-like Sorolaff wilderness. Duo paused at the edge and let go of his hair before he raced in after them. They were perfectly quiet for the first few brush miles or so (disregarding the small curses that came from Duo pretty much endlessly).

Heero stopped when they were in another clearing, one with few trees and the horrible, horrible sun. He glared at his two followers and said something to the extent of 'stay here, I'm going to see where we are' before he ran off into the distance, perhaps never to be seen or heard from again. Wufei was secretly glad for the break since it was so freaking hot. The same could be said for his companion. Duo was so happy that he started dancing around. That's what it looked like at first but as Wufei turned his eyes back to the brunette he saw that he was whacking his arms and face. Duo's ballet went on for some time, so long that he had to ask.

"Is there a problem?"

Duo took this as an invitation and hopped over to Wufei. The Chinese pilot leapt back when he realized that he was actually swatting away giant, unidentified insects. Wufei never had a great fondness for bugs. Especially large, diseased ones.

"Yeah there's a problem. Where'd all these freaking bloodsuckers come from? I even rolled my sleeves down and they keep attacking me…" He scrubbed at his face.

Wufei fought back an urge to laugh. His entire arms were bare and he hadn't been bitten by anything.

"They must really like you."

"Oh go ahead and laugh. I'm perfectly willing to cut myself open and bleed all over you so you can have whatever Asian or African disease I've probably gotten eight thousand times."

Wufei turned his head to the side so he could smirk openly without eliciting another response from his companion.

"I don't know what to tell you. I'm sure that your particular doctor shot you up with all sorts of immunizations so you'll be okay…probably."

Duo kicked out wildly at Wufei but he easily dodged it.

"Why aren't they attacking YOU?" He yelled in frustration.

Wufei got to his feet as he heard a familiar click from somewhere behind them. Duo was still as oblivious as ever and he continued in his panicked gyrations.

"Just KILL me now," He moaned dramatically. More clicking and now there were the sounds of shuffling.

Wufei cursed and grabbed Duo roughly by the arm before clamping a hand firmly over his big mouth. He protested and wriggled to try and get away but he too quieted down when they heard the rushing of footsteps. Whoever was coming was obviously trying to be stealthy.

"Well look what we found."

Wufei released Duo as ten men, armed to the teeth and dressed identically, entered the clearing. Each of them had semi-automatics and were locked onto the two pilots. While not entirely unexpected, they came upon them so out of nowhere that the two pilots were slow to react. Duo put his hands on his hips and nudged closer to Wufei. His hands were firmly in his pockets so he could avoid swatting at the bugs and getting them both blown up. For his part, Wufei kept his arms harmlessly at his sides and he didn't even let fleeing surprise cross his face.

He couldn't tell too much about the attackers other then they looked remotely military but slightly gone to seed with their faded red, threadbare outfits.

"Don't even think of moving," said the annoyingly nasal one in the lead. He was slightly in darkness so it was hard to tell, but Wufei assumed he looked as irritating as his voice.

"Who are you?" Wufei asked.

The man in charge threw his head back and laughed like some cartoony villain. "Isn't it obvious? I thought that the word would have spread by now. We're from OZ. Well previously. Now we call ourselves the Cowardly Lion and you're our prisoners of war. I suggest you put your hands up, ladies."

Duo and Wufei were deadpan. "Son of a Bitch."

_I also don't own Dynasty Warriors or any other assorted game. Just thought I'd put it at the end to…not ruin the surprise? Well, I hoped you liked the current installment and I thank you for reading it. Comments are welcome. _


	4. Chapter 4

_Warning: Relena-based criticism, shounen-ai if you squint, general oddness, GBoys out of character, language, and convenient situations ahead. This chapter in particular will jump a lot. You have been warned._

_Disclaimer: Another one? The things we do to satisfy non-existent lawsuits though admittedly it would be creepy and unpleasant to be sued. Here it is: I don't own Gundam Wing, never had, never will, and I will claim not to know anyone who says otherwise. Now we can all dance in celebration. _

**Parabola of Mystery **

Chapter Four

_Try aga-in later_

Trowa glanced back down at the perplexing gameboard. He was currently three spaces out of the parking lot, or that's what the crazy man inside the game had told him to do. All he knew was that this 'Mall Madness' definitely delivered on its promise. Just the electronic man's voice was enough to make him want to strangle himself with a wet noodle.

"What the Hell is the point of this game?" He asked, turning his cardboard point card around.

Quatre had the instructions brandished a good three feet away from his face, he was a little scared to be close to them.

"I've played it with Duo before but I was always confused. Uhh it says be the first to buy six items on your shopping list and get back to the parking lot…"

_Red…move five. _

Trowa stuck the cardboard, fake credit card into the little slot with a subtly hidden button.

_Take seventy-five dollars_

"Hmm should we really be encouraging this in young girls? And Duo?" he mused.

"Wow, there are a lot of nitpicky rules here…you have to go to the food court when it tells you…"

"I don't get why I have to buy an exotic parrot in the first place," Trowa added.

"I wonder if he has something else in there…"

Quatre got to his feet and ran back over to where Deathscythe was laid out right next to his Sandrock. It was a tight fit but at least they could get away with only three carriers rather then five. He easily shimmied up the side of the Gundam and stuck his head inside the cockpit. How Duo managed to stow away as much as he did in there was truly amazing. All of their areas had been designed to fit one person and one person alone. Quatre hit the panel underneath the controls where there were snarled wires and Duo's more personal necessities. These included a hairbrush, extra shampoo (in nondescript bottles so no one knows his brand), a mini-deathscythe model, a mismatched pair of socks, and far, far in the back was a dusty deck of cards.

"Hey, he actually has cards in here!" Quatre yelled. He pushed himself out of the Gundam with his prize in hand and sprinted right back to their spot in the front of the carrier. Trowa already had 'Mall Madenss' back in its box. He managed a half-smile as Quatre sat down and beat the box to try and get the excess dust off.

"I can't mix them so you do it," Quatre said as he extracted the cards and handed them to Trowa, who shuffled the cards like he was a Vegas dealer.

"So what do you want to play? Speed's pretty fun."

Quatre shook his head. "I don't know it."

"I guess I could teach you…well what card games do you know?"

The blonde Arab, kind of an oxymoron, smiled sheepishly. "Uh I really only know one…other then Go Fish and who wants to play that?"

Trowa stopped shuffling. "What's that?"

"BS."

"Okay…"

Heero, free of his two cumbersome companions, found it easy to skim over the heavy brush and make his way through 'Soralaff's' jungle. He honestly hadn't thought that any one of them would insist on coming since they all probably knew that this wasn't a real mission. Surpise surprise. The pilot figured that the two would wait at least two hours for his return before they went off on their own, three if Wufei knocked Duo out from the noise first.

The pilot's eyes snapped to the visible daylight and he propelled outside of the line of trees and brush. He rolled and stopped in an overgrown field. Heero straightened and put his hands on his hips before he settled on a stone creation in the center of the jungleless plane. It looked to be at least several centuries old. He had the 'ancient' part in the bag, now all he had to do was grab the first thing inside that wasn't part of the building itself and think of some lie about its importance to the symbolism of OZ's tyranny or something. He stretched his legs before breaking into a run toward the entrance. From this distance it was like some sort of temple.

"Hands behind your head, girly-boy," the annoying one barked as he none-too-gently rammed the barrel of his gun against Duo's forehead. He teetered on the spot before he complied, however sluggishly. Wufei glared. That was just a little unnecessary; they hadn't even heard Duo speak yet. The Chinese pilot already had his hands bound behind his back. One of the men grabbed Duo's hands and tried, unsuccessfully to wrap them up with a dark length of rope. He dropped his gun in the process and it landed hard on his foot. The man released Duo to jump up and down. Wufei couldn't help but roll his eyes. This had to be the least cohesive OZ unit he had ever seen. Hell, it was the least cohesive unit he had seen. Period. No wonder they were fringe. OZ's downfall must have reached them about two years after it collapsed.

"What's with that face?" Asked another soldier, this one with a nose that marked him as part-falcon. Duo turned and pointed to himself curiously, jerking around the man who was tying his hands together.

"It came with the body," he answered.

That earned him another barrel this one to the back of his head. To his assailant's horror, Duo's damp and tangled hair held his barrel captive, proving that it had a mind of its own. Duo's victory was short lived as the man merely yanked his gun out with all his might, bringing a few strands of the unfortunate pilot's hair along with it.

"Geez, just kill us already," he said, trying to get his now bound hands up to his head. Falcon face pushed him roughly into Wufei who didn't fall thanks to his excellent balance. Duo did fall backwards onto his rear, earning him yet another blow to the head.

"Move! We have to get there before the others do and we don't have time for your tricks."

Duo stood up and shook his head violently to deter his personal swarm of Sorolaff bugs. They actually moved away for a second, and Duo had time to reflect on the day thus far. He had been locked out, freaked out, taken halfway across the globe, eaten alive, and captured. Pretty eventful considering that it was only three. They started moving, slowly, since there really wasn't room in the overgrown jungle for so many people to be clumped up together. The leader stopped to let everyone pass him and his eyes settled on their prisoners.

"Come on, tell us who you are already," he said in his nasal voice.

Wufei's estimation of these people went down a few more notches. Now they were in the negative range.

"You don't already know? We were brought here by our resident psycho. I think that he really just wanted to get away from _her_ and who could blame him, the woman would probably eat your soul if she got too close," Duo droned. His was just asking for a pistol whipping.

"Why do _you_ weaklings think we're here?" Wufei asked. He didn't get hit for his rude terminology but the nasal man did scowl in his general direction.

"You're out to get 'it'. That's why we have to take you with us!" This came from an older, seedy man with a long scar down the side of his face behind Duo.

"Cowards. You should have just killed us back there," Wufei replied. Duo nudged him from behind. Well, more like he tried to trip him unsuccessfully.

"Don't encourage them," he hissed, which was more or less heard by all. Both of them were hit this time though Wufei felt that Falcon didn't put much force behind it.

About ten minutes later, Wufei turned to see his companion and snorted at the sight of him. His hair was sticking up at all angles, he was bleeding from the forehead, and was as red as lobster. How he still managed to keep that idiotic, self-important grin was beyond him.

"You look like a tomato. Or a beet. Not sure which," he commented.

Duo grinned like he was off his rocker, oh wait, he was. "Probably so. After being in the sun for so long and being bitten fifteen thousand times."

Wufei sighed. "Or maybe you're coming down with something like you said before. Who knows what lurks in this place? We're not even sure what part of the world we're in…other then the southern hemisphere."

Their captives didn't seem to care about the idle chatter. From their point of view it was either too difficult to beat out of them or perhaps they wanted to hear about Duo's health.

"Nah I've been taking my Vitamin C and Echinacea latently so I'll probably be okay," Duo said.

"Huh?"

Duo nodded like Wufei had actually said something meaningful.

"Yeah, I take all sorts of supplements for what my diet doesn't cover. Oddly enough my immune system's notoriously weak. Stupid crappy immune system."

This earned him a hit in the head. Duo turned to Scar in shock. "What the Hell, man?"

"Don't put yourself down."

Wufei couldn't take it anymore. He threw his head back and laughed.

It was about halfway into BS that Trowa and Quatre realized that it was pretty impossible to play the card game with only two people.

"Five," Quatre said, putting his card facedown on the pile.

"BS. I have three of them and I used one the first round."

Quatre took the pile, frowning, "I think I'd be willing to learn a new game."

What was the point of an ancient temple if you couldn't steal stuff? From the moment that Heero entered he only found crumbling rock or Cowskulls. He would have questioned the historical and geographical inaccuracy of it if he hadn't been so intent on completing the mission. He had put it together in his own head and set one himself. His personal mission included fooling his comrades and getting this whole jungle adventure over with.

Heero dodged left, striking the wall hard with his body as he avoided crashing rock from the ceiling above. This place was falling to pieces around him and still nothing of use. In his favor, he had tried picking up some of the ancient rock but it fell to dust in his hands and he couldn't pass off dust as an ancient artifact unless it was really cool dust.

Heero stopped when he saw a flight of crumbling stairs. The entire temple seemed to be made of nothing but stairs. He sighed and ran at his top speed up. Heero faintly wondered how he was going to get back down since they disintegrated under his weight. He went through the doorway and, surprisingly, there was more nothing. Heero wondered what the odds were that there would be another ancient temple on this rock.

An hour had passed and the down-at-the-heels troupe of OZ rejects still hadn't found whatever it was they were looking for in the Asian country of Sorolaff. Well, neither Wufei nor Duo had even asked if this was really Sorolaff, they didn't want to ruin the illusion. Having an idea of the location would just tell Duo what diseases he might have acquired.

The braided pilot sat down on the nearest rock and he crossed his legs before leaning back on his tied hands. The ropes were cutting of circulation a bit and he really wished he could just shrug them off but the idiots with the guns were currently under the impression that they called the shots. Wufei stopped near him and watched the Cowardly Lions who also thought that it was high time to take a break. Need it be added that they had taken fifteen breaks in that one hour? Despite their claims that they were in a hurry and the numerous proddings to their two captives, the Cowardly Lions were pretty lazy.

"So how much longer are we going to stay with this troupe of losers?" Duo asked.

"I thought that you were still assessing the situation. Though they are weaklings they're also morons...I want to rid the world of them right here and now. I mean, they don't have any idea who we are. It's like they expected to find teenagers in the jungles of…Sorolaff."

Duo scoffed, "Wonder if Heero noticed we're missing? Probably not, knowing him. I sent out the signal to Trowa and Quatre when the Cowards first showed up. I disguised it as getting away from the bugs."

Wufei somehow doubted that it was a diversion.

"At least Barton is perceptive."

There was a tracer's panel in each carrier, they was even connected to the Gundams. Their purpose was as simple as it sounded, to act as locators for each of the pilots if they were wounded, cornered by Relena, or captured.

Duo had, indeed, set his unit off. Deathscythe's panel blinked and beeped repeatedly and the remote one in the carrier did the same.

_Beep Beep Beep_

"…Two Kings," Trowa said, putting his cards facedown on the pile.

Quatre smiled sheepishly and put down a card on top, "one ace."

Trowa currently held three cards. "Uh…not that I'm complaining but why didn't you call it?"

They had spent the last hour playing BS and Trowa wasn't surprised that even though Quatre had nearly the entire deck in his hands, he hadn't called Trowa even once. The blonde shook his head.

"No. You said they're two Kings so I believe you."

Trowa sighed and gathered up the cards. "I'm teaching you Speed."

Quatre nodded and leaned back, taking a deep breath that was more of a disguised sigh. He cocked his head to the side curiously.

_Beep Beep Beep_

"Did you hear something?"

"…No."

Heero had a feeling he was at the end of the line. He had gone up an impossibly long group of stairs and none of them had crumbled. The top of the temple was still in relatively good shape even though logic would have dictated that with the lower structure gone the whole thing should have crumbled like a deck of cards. It was best not to question. Heero pushed open the last stone door before he was in a room made of metal. No typos, it really was metallic from the floor to the ceiling.

"…Odd."

There was a small platform at the door and the rest of the room was covered in water…but it didn't really look like water. It was far too blue and to his expert eyes it was apparent that the liquid itself was aqua not the bottom of the room like in swimming pools. Thus he decided to forego testing the water and instead turned his attention to the raised platform in the center. Like some fantasy altar, there was a podium covered with strange text that he couldn't make out for the distance. At the very top there was a stone box that belonged with the rest of the temple.

He had found his ancient artifact, maybe this one wouldn't crumble.

Heero looked at the walls to either side of the forward platform and he was as happy as he could be to find a none-too-disguised button to get to the platform. There was even a little sign above that said 'a walkway for your convenience'. That was another valuable piece of information: Sorolaff's main language was English. Convenience city indeed.

Heero pushed the button and tensed his body in case it was a trap. It wasn't. True to its word. an iron platform parted the strange water to either side as it went to meet the center rise. The pilot tried it with his foot before rushing across.

He smiled evilly as he approached his prize. Karma, or anti-Relena spirits, or some benevolent force was on his side. Not only did he find a temple but there was a mysterious artifact that nearly emitted 'ancient' from all directions. Heero picked up the box and turned it around in his hands. It was rough like brick but relatively light. He recognized numbers on the surface. They looked like they had been cut right into the rock. Heero stowed it under his arm and leapt back to the door. He had to hurry, Wufei and Duo were bound to have wandered by now.

There were no expected traps on his way out. As a matter of fact, Heero noticed that all the caving and deterioration seemed rather fixed. On closer inspection, the 'bones' of the temple were also made of metal.

_I'm pretty sure all the parts with Trowa and Quatre are confusing unless you know the games they're talking about. Sorry about the obscurity…eh it's probably not funny even if you know the stuff. _

_On a more serious note, if anyone cares, though these chapters are coming at an alarmingly steady rate that's just till I encounter writer's block or have a lot of other things to do. I do hope that at least a couple of people like reading my work so I'm making an effort to continue as well as I can. As always, thanks for reading! _


	5. Chapter 5

_Warning: It should be 'warnings' but I'm too lazy to add an s. Okay so though Relena isn't in the chapter she's still number one on everyone's 'need to kill list', Shounen-ai can be considered present and accounted for, language will be coarse, oddness will be ubiquitous (I've always wanted to use that word), and characters will be ripped from their niches of…character..ness. _

_Disclaimer: I'm seriously running out of ideas as to how I can say that I can't claim any sort of ownership to Gundam Wing. Hey, said it without intending to! That's good enough, right? Oh and I should also add that I think lawyers are awesome. All that suing and the elitism and the roundabout ways of saying things and all the 'party of the first' and such. This is just sad. Skip to the fic. _

**Parabola of Mystery **

Chapter Five

"So we've been out in this jungle for the past five hours and we still aren't any closer to reaching our goal. I think that it's due to you losers having no sense of direction, but, either way I'm gonna take the blame for it. So I figure that if I take suggestions and we plan ahead then maybe it'll go better and we can get to 'it' before the enemy does," Mr. Nasal bellowed.

The Cowardly Lions and their battered hostages were currently holed up right against what looked kind of like a mountain…in the jungle. Duo and Wufei were beginning to think that they had stepped into an alternate dimension filled with idiots. One of the men at the front, kneeling so everyone could see, raised his hand as soon as Nasal was done. Tower nearly jumped up and down with glee when his commander nodded with all the authority of a king.

"I think that we should split into teams and try and find it from there. Then when the other team is in trouble of being eaten by bloodthirsty wolves, the second team can leap in and save them at the last minute…"

He would have continued but Nasal stopped him dead with a sharp jab to the shoulder with, you guessed it, his gun. Duo and Wufei also doubted if they knew there were other uses for their weapons.

"I can see you've put a lot of thought into it but I don't want to break up into teams. Too much trouble. What about the rest of you zombies?"

All eyes averted. Falcon even whistled, the picture of panicked nonchalance, as he crossed his arms and nudged the earth with his foot. Nasal sighed and spun to face the captives.

"What about you two? Any ideas?"

Wufei opened his mouth and closed it. He was torn between the desire to strike his head against the mountain and end it all and actually answering the man's question.

"You're asking us? How the Hell would we know? You're the ones who captured us, the least you could do is lead us around," Duo said.

"I just thought that since you're here and at our command, you ladies could contribute."

Duo smiled, "we have different opinions about what the duties of hostages are."

The commander took a long moment to let these words try and make sense before he snorted and secured his gun to his back. He grunted at his men to get back in position and they soon roughly pushed their hostages back to the middle of the formation.

"Okay we're marching north!"

"Which way's north?"

"Well you make an L with your hand and…"

"No, that's left."

"Oh. How about where the moss grows?"

"What moss?"

"Does anyone have a compass?"

"No, I traded mine back at base for this cool watch. It lights up and plays 'everybody's workin' for the weekend'."

"Kill me."

"Please tell me we at least have a map with us?"

"No, I traded that in too but for a ring. It broke already so that wasn't too great a trade."

"I had mine but…well I didn't have any tp and…"

"KILL ME! NOW!"

"My compass broke when the mean one hit me for stepping on his foot."

"I heard that anyway you go can be considered north."

_Everybody's workin for the weekend. Everybody wants a little romance…_

"I'll even try and escape. Just use the damn gun and put me out of my misery."

"Calm down Wu-man, it's kind of a catchy song, actually."

"Kill him first."

"Both of you, shut up! I'm thinking."

"HA! I win!"

"Win what?"

"The bet. He does think."

_Wham_

"Oww!"

_You want a piece of my he-art, you'd better start from the start_

"I think this way's north…why would the sign lie?"

"A sign? In the middle of the jungle?"

"It's a very helpful jungle."

"Please Nataku, just come and kill me…"

Quatre pulled off the headphones and waited until Trowa did the same. A few minutes after the blonde lost spectacularly at a game of Speed they finally agreed that there _was_ a sort of 'beeping' sound coming from the hangar. From there it was easy to figure out that Duo had set off his tracer and then it was a matter of sending out this neat little invention called a 'bug'. Uninspired but simple. They figured out the general distance between the two points and sent it out to try and pick up any audio. It was a clever though sometimes confusing way to understand just how intense the situation was. After a few minutes of listening, the two had a good idea of the situation: Duo and Wufei had been captured. What they couldn't figure out was exactly why the other two pilots were still in captivity.

"Maybe they have plan," Quatre mused.

Trowa kept his silence, though it spoke for itself, and put the headphones back to his ears. Quatre looked at the rapidly blinking signal the tracer presented thoughtfully.

"I doubt these guys are former OZ but you never can be too careful. I'll go out in Sandrock and retrieve them," he said.

"Hmm, we haven't heard from Heero either. Is it really a good idea to go out there in our Gundams? We could just as easily do it in person."

Quatre stopped from climbing up Sandrock to consider his friend's words. He felt that when Trowa actually did say something, it was always worth it to listen more then if it were said by someone else. For instance, he could go for days and never take anything Duo said seriously because all he said could be considered pure crap but when Trowa made a statement it was usually dripping with wisdom unfairly beyond his years.

"What if those guys have mobile suits or backup? I think it's better to be safe."

Quatre started as he heard more beeping, this time from inside his Gundam. He climbed up Sandrock and stuck his head inside the cockpit. There was a glowing icon in the corner of the formerly blank screen. The blonde looked at it curiously before typing in a few commands to bring up a nondescript file. As he read, his expressions ranged from concerned, to surprised, and finally alarmed. He quickly pushed himself back out, ignoring that he scraped his hands hard against the opening of the cockpit.

"Trowa I just got a message. A fringe OZ organization called 'The Cowardly Lion' has just taken several diplomats in London hostage. According to the mail, they've been sending out small units all over the globe to do things. So far there have been three bombings in Europe and mobile suits have attacked bases in Japan and America…"

Trowa didn't appear to react, well, that was Trowa. He blinked as the information washed over him before turning back to look at the tracer where Duo's signal still beeped eagerly.

"…Son of a bitch."

Wufei and Duo stood aside while the ten men of the Cowardly Lion cut a perplexingly tangled group of vines and branches in their direct path. How they got so knotted, anyone could only guess but it was yet another convenient excuse to slow down and take a break. Wufei was close to his breaking point as was Duo but that was because he was tired of being a meal to every insect in Sorolaff.

"This is just ridiculous, if they were going to pick us up then they probably would have. I'm tired of seeing these specimens of OZ's military might try and shoot vines into submission," Wufei said through clenched teeth.

Duo leaned back nonchalantly against a tree and wriggled his wrists back and forth under the rope.

"Good point. I guess it's high time we got out of here and back to our base, Relena or no."

He worked hard at his bounds since Duo knew very well that Wufei was far more likely to be free before he was. Before the Chinese pilot could get underway the annoying one cleared his throat importantly. This earned him a glare through blood-shot eyes.

"Just don't get too carried away. Though they're all idiots I think that killing a couple of them is the same as laughing at disabled people."

Wufei rolled his eyes and managed to bring his hands back around to the front of his body by bringing them under his legs in a contortionist nightmare. He then got his rope off easily using his fingers and teeth. Duo grimaced and worked at slipping his wrists through the loosening rope.

"Heads up you brain-dead primates!"

The acutely annoyed Wufei screamed across the clearing, giving his dim opponents some warning before he rammed Mr. Nasal in the base of his neck with his clenched fist. He got two other 'soldiers', using the term loosely, with a roundhouse kick before grabbing Nasal's gun to hit Falcon right in the nose.

Duo still worked his hands, the rope was far more stubborn then he originally gave it credit for. He jumped around as Scar ran over and tried to apprehend him. The man had lost his gun and tried lunging out at regular intervals to try and trip Duo.

"Damn. Wufei I think that I need a little help, ow!" Duo spun and fell onto his backside. He wasn't totally lost though as he sent out a sharp kick to Scar's shins. The braided annoyance clenched his teeth and looked up for the retaliation but the man's pained expression turned to…nothing as he collapsed on top of him. Duo let a frown grace his face as he saw Wufei, hand still extended, behind the fallen man.

Hitting the ground had loosened the rope just enough so Duo could get his hands free and he pushed the hefty man off of him before tentatively accepting Wufei's help back to his feet.

"Thanks for the help," Wufei said dryly.

"I never thought you were one for sarcasm," Duo replied.

"You're welcome. So where are we?"

Duo brushed his damp, muddy clothes off. It was a pathetic attempt at best. All his vigorous sweeping motions did was move the muck around and get his hands goey. He stuck his tongue out and bit back the urge to gag.

"Hell if I know. With their luck we're probably about two seconds away from where we started."

"Hmm," Wufei turned in a circle before he pointed somewhere behind where Duo stood. It was basically in the opposite direction they had come from. Simple logic would have dictated that going back a way that the Cowards had proved to be unsuccessful would yield the same results. Wufei went without hesitation and Duo followed.

As they tried to make their way back to the carriers or to some form of civilization, Duo soon found a game to distract him from all of the nasty nature that they had intruded upon. Since Wufei went first, he had to bend back all of the overgrown branches and leaves barring their path. He would stretch one all the way back and move through before releasing it. The branch in question would make a swift noise through the air before smacking Duo in the face. Night had already fallen so it was always a toss up as to whether or not all of his hits were intentional. Duo rubbed his nose and ducked under another one. It caught his braid and jerked his head back with the tension since the hair was, luckily, reluctant to part from the rest of his body.

Duo groaned, he would have to get his precious, damaged hair untangled from something else. The Sorolaff goo mixed in with the braid made the snarls and tangles all that much worse. Though the superheroes from that morning were very far off, Duo felt that they could make a return appearance at any moment. He raised his head miserably and glanced around for the other pilot. He didn't hear him walking or moving any branches from up ahead. That was odd.

"Hey Wufei can you wait up? I'm a little trapped here…"

No answer. Duo rolled his eyes in frustration and yanked the rest of his hair free. Without any regard to the branches, he raced on. Duo tripped occasionally on the roots that he couldn't see for the cloak of darkness further accented by all the close trees.

"WUFEI! If you're there at least answer…"

There came a rustling sound from far off and Duo stopped in his tracks. It was his habit to continue on and speak rather then listen so he couldn't say how long this particular sound had been going. He closed his eyes and tried to get his hamster-wheel mind to focus. There was the rustling and also a larger, deeper sound. He could actually feel the earth beneath him move ever-so-slightly.

More rustling and was that panting that he could also hear now? Duo smiled. It was amazing that he could hear so much since he was actually paying attention.

"What are you doing you idiot!"

His eyes snapped open and Duo saw Wufei's face a little too close up before he was literally caught up in his momentum. Wufei grabbed him up and jumped high enough to question the laws of physics (the mark of a good martial artist, don't ya know). Duo coughed. His pain was understandable; to bring him along, Wufei had to grab Duo's middle like he wanted to rip his stomach from his body.

The black forest was suddenly bathed in light as the spot where he was standing moments before collapsed under missile fire. The trees where they landed were showered in sparks but only a few of them caught fire. Wufei let go and ran ahead leaving Duo to stagger after him, gripping his stomach.

"Holy shit! What was that? Don't tell me there's someone competent in the Cowards?" he asked as he ran after his companion.

"Are you blind? It's Barton."

"Trowa? Why's he attacking us?"

Wufei stopped but without warning, thus Duo crashed into him. He made a fair amount of show to regain his footing and ended up grabbing the back of Wufei's jungle-infected shirt.

"You're the one with the signal. I never turned mine on," Wufei pushed Duo away. "He must have seen me jump out of nowhere and fired. It's really dark out here after all…and if he really did know that it's me then I'll kill him."

"Yeah, you do that," Duo gasped.

"Duo? You there?"

They raised their heads as one and glanced up at the jovially colored Gundam. Heavyarm shoved a few trees easily to the side.

"Yeah it's me. Wufei too. You almost killed us!" Duo said. From Trowa's point of view it must have looked like a little black ant was jumping up and down.

"Are you two okay?"

They turned to see Sandrock directly behind. Wufei scowled. For some reason unfathomable to the two in their Gundams, he was slightly upset that he was the main victim of their little misunderstanding.

"We're fine. We've been…wandering for a little while now," Duo said. He didn't want to lie, exactly, but it was also hard to openly admit that he and Wufei had been caught by the dumbest soldiers known to man.

"Uh…sorry you two but we used the bug so we know you were captured. I have to say they didn't seem to be all that bright," Quatre explained.

"I think that was the understatement of the year…when you really get down to it they were the worst unit I've ever seen," Duo trailed off and a smile spread slowly across his face. There was another second of quiet before he broke out into peals of hysterical laughter. It was as ridiculous as it seemed. They could have gotten away at any point of time and avoided being blown up by their own allies but for some reason that neither of them had even thought about, Duo and Wufei had just tagged along with the Lion losers until they absolutely couldn't take it anymore. Wufei realized it too but he didn't find it nearly as funny.

"So where's…" Quatre stopped when a greenish black blur rolled into the area beside the other two pilots. He straightened up and looked curiously at the two Gundams then at the pilots.

"What happened to you? You both look like shit."

Duo clutched his sides and fell to his knees, he was laughing so hard. The grumpy pilot regarded him with the lunacy that he deserved. Wufei fumed and struck Duo on the side of the head. As he turned just to make sure that the guy who had abandoned them wasn't laughing his eyes snapped to the odd object underneath Heero's arm.

"What's that?"

"The artifact."

Duo straightened and though he took gulping breaths, he had his usual, questionable control.

"The thing we had to save from the Cowardly Lion. I hope it's not as worthless as the faction."

Heero frowned. "What?"

"You were the one who heard about it first. We actually ran into a small unit from the Cowardly Lion," Wufei explained.

Frown again, then blink. "Huh?"

"They also attacked several places around the world and took some diplomats in London hostage," Quatre supplied.

"Yeah, I guess your scheme to get away from Relena turned out to be a real mission after all," Duo added.

Heero waited a minute before he spoke and when he did it was slowly, like he was thinking out each word before saying it.

"You mean the OZ organization called The Cowardly Lion?"

"…Duh."

"Son of a bitch."

_Sorry this one isn't very good. I had a hard time writing it. The usual 'thanks for reading' is in order and I'd also like to add that comments are still quite welcome. _


	6. Chapter 6

_Warning(s): Relena-bashing, adorably endearing characters out of character, even more endearing foul language, shounen-ai, wonder if you can guess who, and last but certainly not least…oddness aka insanity caused by the writer's preexisting condition of dorkiness. _

_Disclaimer: I don't own any part of Gundam Wing. _

**Parabola of Mystery **

Chapter Six (Subtitled Chapter 5.5)

"Freeze!" yelled a remotely familiar nasal voice. There came the sound of several guns caulked in unison and many of them not. One even went off by accident and a soldier cried out in pain. Wufei and Duo both groaned. Heero spun in place to be greeted enthusiastically by none other then the Cowardly Lions. Were you honestly expecting someone else?

"Maybe we should have killed them after all," Duo said with a slight wince as his head obviously remembered the feel of their barrels. Wufei shook his head and moved in to attack the group again.

"Fire, men," Commander Nasal said in an unexpected show of competence.

The worn Chinese pilot rolled to the side and the other two ducked as the Lions open fired on them. Their aim wasn't too good but the sheer amount of firepower they put out was a point of concern for the three young men. That and since there were so many lousy shots in one place, they literally covered the entire clearing (albeit by accident). Duo rolled back into the trees and glanced out toward Heavyarms. How could they not see the two Gundams in their midst? Talk about short-sighted.

"Stop firing or I'll return it," Trowa said. It wasn't too hard to figure out what his next action was. The Cowards finally all looked up to see him looming above and the firing instantly ceased.

"Wh…what's that doing here?" Scar asked, literally throwing his gun aside just to be sure.

"It's a transformer!"

"No, I thought they called those crappy things Rangers?"

"Well it's certainly a mobile suit…"

"It's a Gundam you losers!" Duo yelled over the din.

"…No, I still think it's a Ranger. Gundams are more…round."

Nasal sighed, "Where have you guys been? The Gundams were the main enemy of OZ! There were pictures of them all over all the news media and the reports. I think that pilot was even televised!"

"…Well I was living in a cave."

"We didn't have the internet."

"I just don't care."

Wufei rolled his eyes and prepared to leap at the soldiers again. The first one who saw him coming, Tower, screeched like a little girl and tried to make a break for it. He didn't get far with his bandy-legged sprint and Wufei was far too fast for him. The man was again unconscious in a matter of seconds. Heero wasn't too far behind him so all the other three could do was watch as the soldiers were swiftly taken care of. Wufei surveyed his handiwork and wiped his forehead ceremoniously.

"…I actually think you're right, Maxwell. Killing them would be akin to insulting the terminally weak."

"You mean the disabled. And it's laughing at them," Duo yelled. Wufei _really_ looked like he cared.

"Let's just get back to the carriers," Heero said.

To conserve sanity and to further prevent jungle-ickyness, the three on the ground simply rode Heavyarms and Sandrock back to the planes. Duo dramatically collapsed the moment Sandrock set him down.

"Civilization! Sweet air-conditioning and running water!"

Wufei promptly stepped on him when he got off the other hand. Duo grimaced and pushed himself to his feet. He waved at Sandrock feebly.

"Ugh, all I have to say is that you're going to have to fly, Quatre. I think I'm going to sleep for about five days and then get a tetanus shot."

Quatre replied as he eased his Gundam back into the underbelly of the carrier.

"Why would you need a tetanus shot?"

Duo shrugged. "Why not? I'm going to the nearest clinic and asking them to give me every shot known to man. I wouldn't even say no to a smallpox vaccination."

"Whatever you say…"

The bitten pilot scoffed haughtily. Quatre obviously didn't know the horrors of being the prized entree on every bug's menu. Duo stood next to their carrier and looked pathetically up at the long distance between the ground and the door. There was a small ladder to assist in getting up but his sore and tired muscles sobbed at the thought of making it. He smiled and held out his arms as Heero passed.

"Carry me up?"

Heero promptly pushed his face into the side of the plane. Duo took the hint and started climbing on his own.

Quatre turned when he saw Duo stagger into the other pilot's seat at the front of the plane. The blonde had already secured Sandrock, put the cards and Mall Madness back in Deathscythe, turned on the carrier, and belted himself in in the time it took for Duo to go twenty vertical feet. He smiled at his friend knowingly.

"That's just pathetic."

"Duo stuck out his tongue as he limply secured himself to the seat. "So's my life when I can't even get sympathy from you."

Quatre laughed and followed Heero and Trowa's carriers into the air. Duo sighed and settled back into the regrettably uncomfortable chair.

"I think I'm going to take a few minutes to d-i-e," Duo said as he closed his eyes and tried to fall into a light or deep sleep, he didn't care which as long as some peace could be had.

As is the case with all of these situations, when Duo was half-out, Heero's face appeared on the vid. Quatre's eyes flitted toward his comatose friend before he turned up the audio. Heero didn't look too pleased. His eyebrows were knit close together and even through the fuzzy screen Quatre could tell that he was clenching his jaw.

"Did Duo pick up the artifact?" Heero asked.

Quatre blinked. Oh yeah, there was the promise of treasure in mythical Sorolaff.

"One minute…" Quatre kept one hand on the controls while he leaned over and shook Duo awake as gently as he could manage. The dazed Duo's eyes snapped open and he sat straight up looking right and left with two quick jerks of his head. Quatre's stomach churned slightly with guilt for waking him.

"Duo, did you pick up the 'artifact' that Heero had with him?"

Duo rubbed his eyes and yawned. "uh huahah?"

"Huh?"

"The box?"

Heero nodded and Duo put up his own vid.

"You lost the box? Great going…I thought that was what we came to _Sorolaff_ to get…"

Heero fumed. "I thought you might have taken it."

"Why would I want a piece of crumbling rock? What was it anyway?"

"Just what you said it was, a box, but it was an artifact at a temple that I found in the middle of the jungle."

Duo raised an eyebrow but it was undermined by his smile, "so that's where you went when you abandoned us. Is the box really that important?"

Heero nodded and the vid went offline for half a second. They saw through the windshield that the carrier in front did a 180 and back the other way. The braided pilot slammed the panel with both his hands to try and clear the feed. Heero's face came up a few seconds later.

"We're going back."

Duo took a deep breath and, "noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo."

"Okay I'm turning too," Quatre said as he jerked the wheel hard to the right. They literally spun in the sky with maneuverability that you wouldn't expect from such a clunky plane. Duo put his head in his hands the moment he was able and the 'no's continued. Wufei came onscreen then, presumably to yell at Heero.

"The Hell?"

"You got the message, we're going back," Heero said needlessly.

"Nooooooooooooo."

"Just for a damn box?" Wufei demanded.

"It's part of the mission."

"Nooooooooooooo."

"Could you guys just calm down?" Quatre tried.

"Nooooooooooooo."

"Shut up, Maxwell."

The lines of communication between their carrier and the rest cut off abruptly and Duo stopped yelling. Quatre glanced at his friend in curiosity. Duo went from looking like he lost his Deathscythe plushie to oddly thoughtful.

"Tell me…do you think that this thing Heero found is really some ancient artifact?" Duo asked.

So that was it. "…Well the Cowardly Lion thing turned out to be right and I thought you said that they were after something too? It makes sense."

Duo snickered and pushed his temporarily nasty hair back (it _would_ be temporary if he had anything to do about it).

"Yeah they definitely delivered what they promised. But somehow I don't think that Heero knew about all this ahead of time. Why would he be the only one to get the mission in the first place? We usually get more information then 'go to the magical kingdom of Sorolaff and find an ancient artifact while you're chased by the biggest screwups formerly in OZ'."

Quatre didn't speak right away. He was most likely caught in the quandary of his puppyish trust of his friends and its conflict with the slight amount of logic in Duo's words, which was a surprise in itself. He followed the first carrier down and they were soon in the decently open part of land in the middle of the jungle. He released the wheel of the plane and messed with the buttons on his sleeves as he still appeared deep in consideration.

"It's odd, to be sure, but I still would like to wait it out and see what happens. I don't think that we can decide what's going on until we get more information. I just wonder why we've never heard of this former OZ faction before…"

"Especially considering they're a bunch of idiots?" Duo tried. "Yeah, me too. Well, they were fringe so they probably only did something every now and then. It was easy enough to slip under the radar."

There was a long beep and the other three came onscreen. If it was possible, Heero looked more pissed then before but the other two were their usual selves (except for Wufei's disheveled state).

"So I'm going back out to look for it. I don't want…" Heero started.

"I'll go," Trowa said. His companion's eye twitched as he turned to look at him.

"No. You…"

"I'm going too!" Wufei added.

"I'd feel bad if you did it on your own," Quatre interjected politely.

"I wouldn't. He can run into a pack of crazed Releans for all I care," said Duo.

Heero gritted his teeth but other then that he didn't show any further signs of annoyance with the others. He took a deep breath and waited to make sure no one else was going to volunteer before he spoke.

"I'm going on my own. If you recall the last time I took people out they got captured," he said.

"That's mainly because you abandoned us," Duo said as he leaned back in his chair, settling in again.

"We'll go out in our Gundams again and you can be on the ground, Heero," Quatre suggested. Heero shook his head. They turned their attention back to Wufei's vid as he tapped the screen impatiently.

"Look, we're not entirely a unit so we can act as we want to," Wufei said.

"Wufei I think that you should stay here too…you've been out long enough today," said Quatre.

"Like that's going to stop him," Duo sighed.

Wufei gave him a short frown and his screen flickered off. Heero and Trowa did the same a second later, leaving Duo and Quatre alone again.

"Hmm…that settled a lot. If you want to go then go, I'll stay here and guard the carriers," Duo said.

Quatre nodded. Duo watched him leave before he brought the plane's computer to life and set it to alert him when there was movement in the area. He then curled into a little ball on the uncomfortable seat and was asleep in a record five seconds. He was probably the smartest of them all but that was due to his fear of being bitten rather then any real desire to stay.

"I told you to stop following me, you'll only get in the way," Heero yelled as Wufei came level with him. They currently ran at top speed through the jungle, eager to get back to the place where the Cowardly Lions were previously unconscious. Wufei scoffed and pulled ahead of his cohort.

"Who do you think you're talking to? I'm not Maxwell. I'd worry about you slowing me down."

"Fine…but I do wish that Quatre hadn't decided to come."

True to what he said earlier, Quatre was following but in his Gundam. Heero assumed that Trowa stayed since he nor his Gundam were nowhere in sight. They took a sharp left to avoid a tightly clustered bunch of vines and trees. It was unusual but both pilots seemed to have already made an internal map of the place even though it was horribly dark and everything would have looked the same to any casual, sane observer.

They both tensed internally as they neared the clearing, just one branch out of the way and they would be there. It was bathed, but only slightly, in the moonlight that won the battle between the smallest of slits in the trees.

"Freeze, ladies…"

Wufei paused, ready to go into a crouch, the moment he heard those words. He blinked and glanced around for the source. It was definitely Mr. Nasal but he was nowhere in sight. Heero walked to the edge of the trees, where they attacked, to find several sleeping bodies partially covered by the tall grass and leaves, like the jungle wanted to absorb them. Poor jungle. Heero nudged the commander with a toe roughly and turned him over to make sure he was asleep. He was, so it must have just been him shouting…in his sleep.

"…I would say typical but I can't even muster that much of a response," Wufei said. He put his hands on his hips and turned in place to quickly search the perimeter.

"Where did you lose it? You were near here when you first showed up."

Heero continued checking among the fallen soldiers. This was pretty easy as he had excellent night vision, like all psycho robotic-men with catlike reflexes and a God complex.

"How many men were in the unit?" he asked.

"Ten."

Heero paused. "…There are only nine…"

"Huh. Guess that explains where the ancient artifact went," Wufei said. As easily as he breathed, he kicked his shoe off and let it sail swiftly to the right.

"Ow!"

"There's number ten."

Heero and Wufei both dashed at the figure cloaked by the leaves. Though he should have had a gun on him, he decided to try and make a break for it rather then defending himself. The Coward didn't get very far, only a few steps before he smacked right into a tree. Heero blinked as something bulky flew back and landed conveniently in his hands. Wufei stopped in his tracks and rolled his eyes, especially since Heero had his 'mission-accomplished-now-I-can-die-in-peace' smile on his face.

"Now we can go," Heero said.

"So…does that mean that we came all the way out here just to watch Tower knock himself out?"

"…Guess so."

"Putting ourselves and more importantly our Gundams in questionable danger?"

"Yes."

"Coming all the way back out to this hole of a jungle even though our legs are about to give out, not that anyone would admit that sort of thing?"

"You got it."

"Fuck it."

"My thoughts exactly but…"

"The mission, yes I understand. I just really want to kill someone right now."

Sandrock stepped in behind them at that point.

"Did you find it?"

"Yep."

"Okay, then let's go back," Quatre said.

Wufei leapt up on the Gundam's foot without warning. He did another one of those physics-disregarding jumps to land on the right hand before arrogantly looking down on Heero.

"Just don't lose it this time."

Thus they left the Cowardly Lions, again unconscious; to go back to the carriers for what they hoped would be their last trip out of the jungle of Sorolaff.

_Annoyed? Yeah, sorry that they literally accomplished nothing. Now they're right back to where they were at the end of last chapter. I promise to actually let them get away from Heero's Sorolaff next thought I think Heero would prefer to be king of the jungle rather then back in a place where he can be stalked. Thanks for reading and your comments are greatly appreciated. Thanks again and G-boy plushies for all. _


	7. Chapter 7

_Warning(s):Shounen-ai, Relena-bashing, language most foul, strangeness, Characters may be more different then they originally appear…anything else? No, I think I got it all. _

_Disclaimer: Thought you'd get off easy with that last one, eh? Since I only wrote the disclaimer and none of these other useless words I bet you thought 'she finally ran out of ideas!' I was just saving it for this one. Oh yeah 'I don't own Gundam Wing'. Got it out of the way before I forget. Anyway, disclaimers…fun…I'm sure no one actually reads this so I'll get to writing the actual chapter. _

**Parabola of Mystery **

Chapter Seven

"Duo, get up, we're here…"

Duo frowned and shrugged away from the hand that tried to pry his arms from his knees.

"Leave me alone. I don wanna go to school."

"Since when has he gone to school?" this voice was far less soothing then the other one which did nothing for the childishly asleep Duo. He screwed up his face, not that it was visible, and dug his forehead into his knees.

"Duo please, I've been trying for fifteen minutes…"

"Nnnnggh."

Duo rolled over to get away from them but his beloved, comfortable among comfortable position was interrupted by cold steel. He struck his head against that same horribly hard surface and he splayed flat as a pancake. Being awake wasn't too far off.

"Good. Now open your eyes before I lose my patience."

He presumed that it was the harsher voice that was responsible for the pressure on his midsection. It started light and then steadily heavier, causing pain to course through Duo's arms and legs since he hit him in just the right spot. His eyes snapped open and Duo saw Quatre and Wufei far above him. The former's face was masked with morbid concern while the latter had obviously been forced into helping. Duo sat up and lucky for him, Wufei backed off.

"You could have been a little nicer. I'm infected here," he said groggily.

"You look fine to me," came Wufei's snappy retort.

"That's true 24/7."

"You're okay?" Quatre asked.

"I guess I'll live. Sometimes I get really tired though and it's impossible to wake me…"

Quatre was satisfied enough with Duo's responses. He leaned forward and fully turned off the plane before offering Duo a hand.

"You slept the entire way home. I asked you to sit up and put on your belt but I couldn't wake you. And you're sure you're not sick?"

Duo nodded and even managed a snappily timed smile. He yawned and followed the questionably happy pilots out of the plane. He immediately felt that weird, timeless jolt as he recognized the secondary hangar around the; the kind that come on when you see something familiar after being in a horribly unfamiliar place. Deathscythe was even in place as they moved through the main hangar.

"Thanks for putting him back. You could have just waited for me though," Duo said as he flashed a smile at his precious Gundam. Wufei scoffed and made an offhanded comment before he broke away from the line and moved to his Gundam.

"It wasn't any trouble." Quatre came to a stop and allowed Duo to go ahead of him up the stairs and into the main part of their 'base'. The braided pilot was perfectly happy. He could almost convince himself that the weird Sorolaff stuff was just a funny yet sad nightmare.

"Hey guys, how are you holding up?" he bellowed as he spotted Heero and Trowa sitting at their strategy table. It was located in the far corner of the living area so he couldn't see what fascinating object they were crowding around. He also didn't particularly care. Everything was good now that he was back indoors. It certainly didn't matter that the other two hadn't even lifted their heads when he so kindly called out to them, no, they could continue being silent, anit-social jerks as far as Duo was concerned.

He nearly skipped but something caught his eye. There was an old armoire pushed against one of the walls, they hadn't felt the need to get rid of it when they moved in and he usually didn't give it a second thought. This time was decidedly different. The Duo in the mirror didn't look like his usual perky, wonderful self. No, he was red, white, and something that resembled a dying animal's nest was on the top of his head. Duo froze and shakily moved his hand to his hair. Gooey. Disgusting. He brought it before his face to find a monstrously huge, barely dead insect. Its six, string-like limbs still waved faintly in his hand.

"AAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!"

Nothing more needed to be said.

The two pilots unlucky enough to be in the room with Duo when he saw his reflection could be considered legally deaf for two hours after 'the explosion'. It was quickly apparent that the brunette was the worst off of all of them. It was to the point that Wufei was the only other one who showed wear and that was quickly remedied by a fast shower and a change of clothes.

Heero turned over the artifact in his hands. He and Trowa still sat at the table just trying to figure out how to open it. You'd think that something created by the ancient, primitive people of Sorolaff would be easier to open. So far they had just reestablished that there were recognizable numbers on the side but they didn't make any sense.

"We still aren't closer to opening it. Maybe we should try a more dramatic approach," Trow said coolly.

"Such as?"

"Breaking it open."

Heero frowned. "I don't think that's the right tone to take. This is supposed to be a valuable treasure."

If Trowa seriously thought it was worth it he would have mentioned something about the fact that while Heero was right on about the Cowardly Lions, there still was quite a bit of doubt about the validity of 'Sorolaff'. It certainly didn't come up when he looked at a map or typed it into a search engine on the 'net.

Heero was silent and then he put the box down on the table. "Ah screw it, get me something to hit it with."

Trowa moved to their 'handy supplies' cabinet conveniently located just a short distance away. He tossed aside random Gundam parts and finally pulled out a long crowbar. He tossed it to Heero and Spandex-boy got right down to work.

There was a small sort of groove in the top of the box; the lid could probably be lifted with the appropriate amount of force or trickery. Heero pushed one end of the crowbar under the groove and he kicked chair back so he could get enough leverage standing. Trowa stood aside to watch as Heero took a long breath and pressed down with all his might. His arms shook with the effort and so did the box but the groove and lid didn't move at all. Heero relaxed his grip and wiped his hands on his spandex before trying again. The results were pretty much the same.

"Do you want some help with that?" Trowa asked.

"No, I'm fine," he snapped.

Heero strained further, this time a little more pathetic as he ran in place to try and push the lid up. It was either really ancient and stubborn or there was something they were missing. Either way, twenty-five tries (three with Trowa helping) later, the box was victorious. Heero collapsed into his chair, breathing heavily. Trowa wasn't tired at all but then he had only helped as much as Heero would let him.

"Is there something that we can look up?"

Heero kept his head down.

"That's certainly a stubborn box. Maybe you're not doing that correctly," Quatre said from his position in the small kitchen. His arms were fully submerged in soapy water as he did the dishes. Quatre was actually the only one of them who would; the others would rather let the dishes pile up for various reasons. No one had remembered to purchase a dishwasher so that duty was all Quatre.

"The lid is just too stubborn," Heero said.

"Well where did it come from? Maybe you can look up tricks that the culture or religion used."

'That is, if you're not making all this up' was the unsaid implication in that statement. Quatre could be quite cruel sometimes. Heero put his hands on his head idly before inspiration hit him as suddenly as Relena does. He leapt from his seat and walked quickly to his room. One mustn't look too eager or they would fall to Duo status. He ignored the sounds of agony coming from the bathroom and rushed into his room to pick up his laptop. It was surprising enough that Heero parted from it for even a minute. He moved back into the room to see Wufei and Trowa trying their luck at opening the artifact. Disregarding the fact that the other pilot materialized conveniently out of nowhere in the two seconds he was gona, Heero sat at the kitchen table and started typing like mad. Quatre rinsed off the bowls and glanced quizzically at him.

"Is he really looking it up?"

"He's probably just trying to get out of opening the box," Wufei said optimistically. The two flew back as the crowbar broke in two.

They kept trying and nothing changed until Duo came in. He wore long, loose black pants and a matching shirt. He showcased numerous Band-Aids, even on his feet, and he looked like he was still wet from his infinitely long shower. Duo hair wasn't visible from under his turban-towel so he had either ripped it all out from the stress or it was still in progress. All in all, he closely resembled a crazed housewife recovering from going on her eight-year-old's field trip to the zoo. He sat down at the opposite end of the table from Heero and gave a smile that clearly said 'I dare you to ask'. Nobody asked.

"I've got it," Heero said victoriously.

"Got what?" Duo asked.

"I just called on an associate of Dr. J's. I met him a long time ago. He was an expert on things like this."

"You called him…on the computer? With no sound?" Wufei asked.

"He's an expert on make-believe artifacts?" Duo added.

Heero only addressed Wufei's complaint. "It's a figure of speech. Fine. I emailed him and he got right back to me."

"So what is his name?" Quatre asked.

"Dr. J."

"No. The name of Dr. J's associate," Duo corrected.

"Dr. J."

"Huh?"

"His name is Dr. J," Heero said impatiently.

"You keep saying Dr. J! You mean Dr. J's associate is Dr. J?"

Spandex-boy waved a hand, "And you keep saying Dr. J. His name is Dr. J. You're not saying it right. It's a completely different name."

"Dr. Jey?"

"Exactly."

"How's it spelled?"

"J."

"I see the distinction."

"Either way, he'll be here within the hour," Heero explained.

Duo's Coward induced headache went up a notch but it was easily ignored when he thought of the one that would hit with a scientist coming. Any associate of Dr. J was bound to be as insane as he was.

For some inexplicable reason, they had a doorbell. Their current home used to be a factory so it didn't make much sense as to why an office would have something so homey and asinine preinstalled. It was one of those issues that they would probably talk about when they were rip-roaring drunk, but without logic it was nice to have a warning that they were about to blow up solicitors and girl scouts.

The moment that same doorbell rang, Heero made a mad dash for the door. They had the bell rigged to several nasty contraptions aka anti-Relena security that included tar, feathers, and a bazooka. He disarmed these functions quickly and checked through the peep-hole (you never can be too careful) before he opened the door.

"Heero Yuy? It's been awhile."

Duo and Quatre both glanced over toward Heero and this 'Dr. J'. They had expected to hear the same, arrogant, raspy voice of an old scientist but the man at the door didn't sound elderly at all. His voice was actually quite pleasant, with a slight British accent rounding out the words. Heero moved back to reveal a man who visibly wasn't old either. As far as scientists went, he was quite handsome with his sandy brown hair and light blue eyes, framed by glasses. The only indication that he wasn't some solicitor or girl scout was his outfit. He wore a long white lab coat (so what else could he be?) and he had a steel briefcase in hand.

"So these are the others? Interesting," J said as he entered the room, pushing past Heero and kicking off his notably muddy shoes. The pilot obviously seemed used to him as he merely closed the door and reset the security measures.

"I guess that's Chang Wufei," J said as he pointed to well, Wufei. J's eyes then settled on Trowa. "Trowa Barton." He turned toward the kitchen and nodded to Quatre, "Quatre some-name-I-can't-remember Winner and…" J leapt three feet in the air when he noticed Duo.

"Relena Darlian! Are you sure you really need me to help?"

Duo's smile literally evaporated. "Now you're just trying to mess with us."

J pulled off his glasses and wiped them on his coat before trying to focus on Duo again.

"Oh…sorry. All I know about Relena is that she's supposed to be a frightening woman. I guess you're the annoying one?"

This guy was just making points right and left. At least Duo had a sense of humor about himself. He nodded and extended his hand.

"Duo Maxwell. I'd say it's nice to meet you but I don't lie."

J returned his grin and moved forward to shake the turbaned-boy's hand. He pulled away as soon as they touched.

"Blimey! You're all slimy."

Duo's showed all his teeth, "I had to use a lot of lotion to get my skin to stop itching. That reminds me, do you know a good clinic?"

"Well I mentored with First Medical in London but let's move on." J turned and addressed Heero. "I heard that you got an ancient artifact, a stone box with numbers on the side that you found in a temple with an underlying metallic structure. I believe you called it Sorolaff?"

Heero moved in and picked up the box, making it obvious to the scientist. "Good memory. Here it is. We can't figure out what the numbers mean or how to open it up."

J wiped his hand on his coat before meeting Heero and taking the artifact from him. He turned the box over in his hands before smiling smugly and setting it down on the kitchen table. He then motioned for the pilots to gather around. Only Quatre came.

"I know exactly what this is and I'm surprised it's held up this well. You see, there's a trick to getting the lid off."

J pushed down on the top of the box and slowly turned it, like a childproof prescription bottle. Heero cursed under his breath and moved in to look inside when J pulled the top off.

"It's still here. The ancient artifact from the future," J said ominously.

Duo was predictably the first to attack that statement. "…What's that supposed to mean?"

It would be a simplification to say that J regarded Duo as if he were stupid.

"It's really obvious, pay attention. It came from the future and then it went back to the past, then to the future again for revisions, back to the past, and then it went through several hands before waiting at the temple till the present. What did Mushroom man teach you anyway?"

"Though I hate to agree with Maxwell since I can't understand what he says half the time, I think he does have a point. You still aren't making sense," Wufei said.

"I get it," Trowa said. All heads, save J's, swiveled toward him.

"The numbers on the side. They're dates," he said.

J held up the box to display the side. Suddenly it all made sense. There were always two numbers for the month, two for the day, and four for the year for each entry. Heero sighed and stuck his hand into the box without further ceremony or chatter.

"Thanks for ruining it," J added.

The others thought he deserved the patented Death glare he received and Heero pulled the artifact from the future out of the box. It was decently big, about the size of a softball but oddly shaped. Duo stood up and leaned in for a closer look. The entire thing was stone grey and appeared to be rough, like concrete. The top end was shaped like a half-inflated balloon that went down into a ring, obviously for a finger, or five with the size, to grip.

"Uh…it's a binky," Duo said as he bit his lip to fight back the urge to laugh.

"I think the proper term is 'Pacifier'," J said, giving him that same look.

"…What, are people from the future giant babies or something?" Duo queried.

"…The HELL?" Wufei echoed.

J just smiled.

_Thus another chapter is complete and I'm sure I cut off at the worst possible place. Come on, just humor me for awhile, thought it may not look it, I have a plan! Now I can take time to laugh evilly whilst I continue with this all-consuming project. Thanks for reading! _


	8. Chapter 8

_Warning(s): Hey we're getting close to ten! That means Ill have written ten of these. I would like to think that anyone who has stayed up to this point knows what to expect but I'll write another warning anyway. You can anticipate reading Relena-bashing, there's shounen-ai in the works, characters have been known to use mild to strong language and be entirely out of character from their anime counterparts. Oh yeah and it's very odd, but I guess that's part of the reason anyone still reads it. _

_Disclaimer: I don't own any part of Gundam Wing. Not the head, or the wings, or the beam saber, or the computer, or the shield, or the gundanium, just pick a part and I don't own it…or the show. Just thought I'd make that clear. _

**Parabola of Mystery **

Chapter Eight

"What a treasure. What are we supposed to use it for? Heh, it doesn't surprise me that the Cowardly Lions are after the world's oldest binky," Duo said.

"Have some respect for someone else's culture," J retorted as he took the artifact from Heero and placed it on the table so the other pilots could see.

"Yep…definitely a pacifier," Quatre said. He took one of the chairs and nudged the object lightly with his hand. J crossed his arms. He was visibly irritated at the fact that not one of the five boys had shown the least amount of awe over the 'impressive ancient pacifier'.

"There's a definite use for it but I don't think I'll tell you. All five of you have no imagination," J stated. When speaking like that, his accent made him sound like a snob which didn't endear him to the boys at all.

"We could figure it out too if we took it apart…or put it around children," Duo mused.

"What does it matter anyway? The point is that OZ doesn't have it. We can go put it in our safe," Heero said as he crossed his arms.

Patience and tempers were high as Trowa unexpectedly snatched up the artifact and threw it against the kitchen cabinet. It dented the wood, impressively enough, and then sailed in a slow-motion arc into the sink. Quatre moved in and his eyes widened in surprise.

"I don't believe it. It went down the drain…"

"Typical. Why'd you throw it anyway, Trowa?" Duo asked.

Trowa shrugged. "I guess I wanted to see what would happen."

"It's always the quiet ones."

"Wonderful. Now you're going to have to fish it out," J started.

"No fucking way. It's a…pacifier or more like a tribute to them since it's made of stone," Wufei exclaimed.

"It's a matter of security, part of the mission," J explained as his eyes flitted to Heero. The pilot sat up straight, got to his feet, and moved next to Quatre by the sink.

"Hmm." He stuck his hand down the drain. Everyone sighed.

"That's just asking for someone to turn on the garbage disposal," Duo said as he knocked his forehead against the table.

"You're too much of a coward to do that," said Wufei.

"Don't throw around that word without reason."

J crossed his legs along with his arms, effectively showing them his level of displeasure.

"I thought that you five would be much more…oh I dunno…interesting? Since I've been here all you've done is stand around and get Yuy's hand stuck in the garbage disposal."

"Such is the way of the world," said Duo.

"Heero don't try and reach further in there or you'll really get your hand stuck," Quatre said as his companion continued struggling.

"Yes. If anyone should be sticking their hand down the drain it should be Maxwell. His hands are already greasy," Wufei stated.

"Thanks Wu-man."

"…Got it," Heero grunted. He pulled back, jerking his arm but it wouldn't budge.

Quatre sighed. It seemed he was less patient with his friends lately. "You won't be able to get your hand back through since it's probably in a fist. We're going to have to figure out another way of getting it."

"I agree with Wufei. Duo should try," Heero said and he pulled his arm, binkyless, out of the sink. All eyes turned to Duo. The still turbaned pilot got to his feet and staggered to the kitchen. He made a big show as he jogged in place, touched his toes, and did running stretches before smiling at his irritated spectators. Without much more ceremony, Duo stuck his hand down the drain. It went significantly easier then Heero's. He smiled and a minute later his arm was back, this time with the binky.

"Thank you. My bill will be in the mail." He bowed and handed Heero the pacifier before returning to his seat.

"I guess it never occurred to you that you could have gotten it from under the sink by undoing the pipes?" J asked dryly.

"Why didn't you suggest that?" Wufei asked back.

"...I don't know. I suppose I wanted to see where you were going. I was slightly amused so maybe I shall help you after all."

"Do we even want to know?" Quatre queried.

"I'll be okay as soon as I know where that binky goes…" said Duo.

With a burst of energy no one would have ever associated with him, J leapt to his feet and snatched the artifact from Heero's hands.

"If you'll all be so kind to follow me to the Gundams."

"Oh my God, what are you going to do to them?" Duo asked in horror.

J ignored him and happily skipped ahead, artifact in hand. He glanced around and then turned back to the morbidly curious boys.

"Oh and if you'll also be so kind as to lead me to the Gundams. I get lost quite easily."

Quatre took that assignment and led the scientist down the hall while the other four were left to eat this information and presumably follow.

"So do you think he actually knows what he's doing?" Wufei asked.

"He did when I was being trained. I can't say he hasn't fried his brain since then but…it's worth a try I guess," Heero answered.

Wufei rose and moved out, followed closely by Heero. Duo put his hands behind his head and watched Trowa leave as well. If it had something to do with his Gundam then he would feel the need to follow but there was something in him that said it wasn't worth it.

They were all back in three minutes flat. The American didn't even bother sitting up straighter. It would probably only provoke them.

"So what happened?"

"Well he told us some nonsense about attaching all the Gundams together so he could…connect them to it. Winner asked what he meant and then that idiot doctor rubbed his head and said he forgot how to set it up. He still won't budge on what the damn thing is used for," Wufei explained.

"Seems to me like he's going to need a few days," Duo said. Oddly enough, it seemed like there was something else behind his words. Heero returned to his laptop and resumed typing.

"Unfortunately so," he said.

Duo steepled his fingers and glanced over toward the others. "Well now it's just a matter of where he's going to stay. I know you don't want him over here so the question really is who annoys you more?"

Quatre nodded from where he and Trowa were setting up Monopoly. It appeared that they pretty much remembered what had happened in their ongoing game before Heero ruined it. Trowa was in the process of putting hotels on Broadway so he didn't acknowledge Duo's proposition.

"I think that we should let Duo have a room on this side. You've hassled him enough."

Wufei sighed. "I really don't care so long as I can monitor that man when he's around the Gundams."

That made it three out of four. Duo locked his eyes with Heero's eyebrows, the only thing visible over the computer screen from his vantage point. The braided pilot then made the most pathetic, puppyish expression known to Duokind.

"Pleeeaase? I swear if you let me come to this side I'll feed and clean myself each and every day and I'll go for walks and I'll be good…"

Heero looked like he didn't want to be bothered. There was another stretch of 'clack clack clack' before he muttered a response.

"Fine. I just don't want to wake up to your music or antics or whatever it is you do in your room."

"Score! You won't regret it, I promise on Deathscythe!" Duo soared from his seat and back toward the hangar to start collecting his possessions. As he danced over the catwalk between the parts of the building he called down to J. The man jerked in surprise from his position at Wing's leg.

"I can't thank you enough for showing up. You're room is over on this side. The main part of the building closes at nine so get anything done before then unless you want to risk being blown up, shot, or volunteer to take out the trash."

J blinked, smiled and went right back to work. Either he didn't exactly get it or he didn't mind being blown up.

It took a week for J to figure out how to utilize the binky. It would be best to not detail the amount of mental anguish that the pilots had to endure just having him there. Scientists notoriously work long hours and never clean up after themselves. The one thing that all five Gundam pilots had in common above all else was that the hangar where they store their precious mobile suits should be kept in the best shape possible. Not a shred of trash settled on the floor for long before J came into the picture. Thus they spent most of the entire week either trying to keep him from setting the place on fire or cleaning up after him.

It was a stormy day when J claimed to have finally completed his work. He stood in front of Trowa's Gundam since it was in the center, and laughed in triumph. The picture was complete as he wore a metal helmet with light bulbs protruding from the side and goggles he stole from Quatre. The five pilots each sat around in the background, four of the five playing the game of Life. None of them paid any attention to him anymore.

"Aww, I wanted to go three," Quatre said and he sat back on his hands.

"My little girls are so beautiful…but it's hard being a single rockstar mom," Duo sighed. He appeared to have recovered from the jungle over the week.

"Too bad there isn't a petition preventing you from spawning," Wufei muttered.

The other two were silent. Heero managed to tear his attention away from his laptop to check on J. The man jumped up and down, laughing like mad, while rushing between the Gundams and using the overhead crane to put large replicas of his helmet on each one.

"Uh…you guys care that he's doing that?"

Duo gave his attention to the spectacle. "What could that do?"

"As long as he doesn't damage Nataku…" Wufei said darkly.

"Somehow I don't think it's going to work. It hasn't all the other times," Quatre added.

The lights dimmed, the power had been playing tricks on them all day due to the three day raining spree. J cleared his throat, begging for silence before he put a hand on his hip and brandished the artifact out toward the crowd.

"Finally I have deciphered the forbidden code and now I can unlock your Gundam's true potential!" he said.

"So that's what he's going to do with it?"

"With a binky?"

"Stop acting like a suburban mom. It's a pacifier."

"Screw you, Wuffie. I'm better then a suburban mom."

"Silence!" J commanded. He turned and placed the binky in the large-ancient-pacifier-from-the-future shaped groove in what they assumed was a sort of control panel that he had built over the week. The lights flickered again, but not as badly as the last time.

"Now nothing can stop this fated chain of events! I leave you all to it," J said. He bowed and headed over toward the catwalk. Heero slammed the top of his laptop down and put it to the side.

"Where are you going? It's pouring outside but more importantly you haven't done anything."

J tossed his helmet aside and straightened his coat. "My work here is done. I used the pacifier. It already happened. You know, the small power surge?"

"That was from the storm. It's been doing that all day," Quatre said.

"Well whatever. I'm off the clock. I need to get back to the colonies and assist a small ice cream rebellion."

They didn't ask but let the man retreat presumably into the stormy night. Duo sighed and turned the counter and he slid his car four spaces.

"Well that accomplished nothing," Wufei stated. Everyone nodded assent.

They went back to their game and Heero to his laptop. The safest place to be during a storm was in the hangar and besides it would be far too much work to move the game back to their living area. Quatre spun, two again, and the rotation continued.

"Heh I bet I get there first," Duo said.

"This game is ridiculous," Wufei complained.

"Why are you still playing it then?"

"I refuse to be beaten and I have to see it through to completion since I started voluntarily."

Quatre was amused. "It's nice to see you stick to your principals even with something as insignificant as this."

Or he didn't want to lose to Duo, hard to tell. They were in the race to retirement when the lights went off entirely. The only illumination was from the machinery and a bit from Heero's computer. They all sat in silence, listening to the rain assault the windows while waiting for their backup generator to kick in. It did a minute later. It wasn't nearly as bright as the usual lights, just a red glow from their backup lights right before each Gundam. It was still enough to play by and Duo spun the turner anxiously

"Eight! Yeah, I totally beat you to retirement!" He cried, moving his car the appropriate spaces.

"You haven't won yet. It's who has the most money at the end…" Trowa trailed off and glanced over toward the Gundams.

"Did you hear something?" Quatre asked.

Heero put down his laptop again and all five turned their attention to the other side of the hangar. In between thunder crashes and the sound of the rain itself, there was a steady whimpering. Duo stood up and slowly snuck over as to not alert suspicion. He moved from Heavyarms toward Sandrock but ended up back near Deathscythe. He finally stood before his Gundam, where the whimpering was the loudest. Duo glared and put his hands on his hips.

"Who's there? You're brave enough to sneak in here so why the Hell are you crying over some rain and red lights?"

There was no answer. Duo moved around the suit to check behind its legs, the best spot for whoever this was to hide. He emerged a second later, shaking his head.

"Who's back there?" Heero queried.

"No one…"

Before they could speculate, thunder crashed again. It was so loud and hard that it rocked the entire building. Duo put his hands on Deathscythe's leg to steady himself. His head turned upward as the whimper turned into a shriek.

"It's coming from…Deathscythe…"

_"Waa…."_

"Uh…someone in there?" Duo asked as he grabbed the line to his Gundam and rode it to the cockpit. He opened it from the outside and predictably enough, there was nothing inside.

_"Waaaaah! Someone make it stop! Crashing is scary!"_

_"Shut the HELL UP!"_

They all turned their heads. This time it was a female voice coming from the far side.

_"Don't argue. It's hard enough to sleep as it is,"_ said a different voice right by Deathscythe.

Duo fell back into his Gundam's cockpit in shock.

"Uh…is it just me or are our Gundams talking?" he asked.

"_No Shit, ya moron! Well, you are Deathscythe's pilot after all."_ The female voice from afar replied.

"…Okay. Who wants to go J-hunting?"

_Now I should say 'odd enough'? Yes, the Gundams are talking so everyone can hear them and there's more where that came from. Hmm guess this is a bad place to stop but there shall be more so you have been warned. Thanks for reading! _


	9. Chapter 9

_Warning(s): Now I think I can add something else to the usual suspects. There shall be Relena-bashing, shounen-ai, oddness, characters out of character, more language then before, and Gundams acting in ways no one would expect. _

_Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or any other franchise, really. These disclaimers are a great way to pass the time while listening to the People's Court. Yep, good reminder of what I'm avoiding. _

**Parabola of Mystery **

Chapter Nine

They stood in shock before the Gundams. In the reddish light it all seemed quite demonic. Duo stuck his head out from inside Deathscythe and looked left and then right. He could still hear Death's voice, it sounded like it came through a bad filter and the whining did nothing to help that. He patted the control panel awkwardly.

"Uh…stop crying. There's nothing to be afraid of."

_"Yes there is. Thunder and lighting came to get me."_ Deathscythe answered.

"Huh?"

_"The don't like me. That's why they turned off the lights."_

_"Yeah, shit-for-brains. If I were lightning I'd strike nothing but you."_

"Nataku?"

_"What is it Justice-boy?" _Her tone was a little less annoyed as she spoke to her pilot.

Lighting crashed again and Death yelled. His pilot patted his controls again and spoke in what he hoped was a soothing voice.

"Look, it's all out there. You can't be struck by lightning in here and even if you were then nothing would happen…I mean you're tougher then that," Duo said.

_"…You promise?"_

"Uh…yeah."

Death's voice took on a distinctly happy-go-lucky-zero-brains quality, _"Okay. I'm good. No. Better then good."_ He was obviously pleased with himself.

"At least the crying has stopped. So do you other Gundams say _anything_?" Wufei queried.

_"I talk, I just don't have anything to say,"_ said Wing, Heero was pleased to find that he didn't sound pissed or like an idiot.

_"Lalalalalala it's-raining- it's raining- it's raining."_ Duo went back down to the floor since the audio was at its loudest in the cockpit. He landed hard on his feet before he turned and surveyed his Gundam with noticeable concern.

"I think I liked it better when I didn't really know what he was saying."

Quatre, who had mainly been smiling at his Gundam, raised his head with Duo's remark. "I could hear Sandrock before now. He's always been there for me, encouraging me and telling me I'm doing a good job." He turned his eyes back to his still mobile suit and continued. "He also tells me to kill people."

Everyone took a step away and Sandrock took his cue. His voice was slightly raspy, like he was used to yelling…or laughing manically.

"_Mwah. You can run but you can't hide." _

"_Yeah, I totally get that too, Cattie. Mine's a voice always saying 'kill yourself, do society a favor, do it NOW'," _Death remarked.

_"That's just me," _Nataku said with a certain amount of dark satisfaction.

"_Your real name's society?" _

_"Shove it."_

_"We've been over this time and time again, you two. That's why you are so far away from each other…and you aren't allowed to speak either," _Wing sighed.

_"I say we let them take each other out."_ This came from Heavyarms whose voice was, oddly enough, female.

_"YAY!" _Death cried.

_"I'd be happy to self-detonate here…near an orphanage…on a planet full of kitties and puppies…near a colony of Red Cross volunteers. No., kitties, puppies, flowers, and bunnies! Hateful little things." _Sandrock raved.

_"I love bunnies!"_

Trowa glanced over at Duo. "You were right."

_"What's that supposed to mean? You humans are full of shit_," Nataku exclaimed.

"Well mine may be 'special' but at least he's not PMSing," Duo muttered loudly.

Wufei whipped around to face him. He and Nataku yelled in unision. "_HEY_!"

_"You're certainly in no position to be talking about PMSing, girly-boy. I could kill you right here and now,"_ Nataku said.

"Yeah and I'm sure that if I cared then that would be a frightening statement. Though you talk, not one of you have moved," Duo said.

_"…We just haven't figured that part out yet."_ She answered.

_"I have but I won't use it until you least expect. When you're all snuggling with your adorable stuffed animals and are dreaming of more adorable bunnies then I shall strike and you will nev-ah know what hit you! MWAHAHA!"_ Sandrock exclaimed.

"Can you…calm him down or get him anti-psychotic hookups or something?" Duo asked as he shot a disgusted look at the kindest pilot's Gundam.

"It offends you? I think he's funny," Quatre said. Everyone took another step away from him.

"He does make a goofy sort of villain I guess."

"_Ohh ohh I know what you mean. There was this thing about that guy who was with that other guy and they tied another guy…or was it a girl? Well they tied Somethin' to train tracks. And then another guy shows up and the guy that Sandy's like is all 'hahaha' and so the guy saves the other guy or the girl from the tracks and she's all 'I love you, let's go home and eat sandwiches' and then they lived happily ever after. Except for the guy Sandy's like. He died." _

Duo easily ignored his Gundam but Wufei stood starting at Deathscythe as his mind tried to decipher whatever the Hell he was babbling about.

"At least Duo resembles his Gundam," Trowa said before he turned to collect the Life game board.

"_Hey, where're you going?"_Nataku asked.

Quatre fielded that one, "We…uh…need to talk about some things…"

"And assassinate Dr. J," Heero supplied.

"_Fine, go ahead and leave me with these losers. Bastards, all of you. You had better hope that we don't get the ability to move on our own or I'll kill that idiotic sonovabitch with the scythe_," she explained.

"I'll visit you later, Nataku," Wufei said as he followed.

"Yeah, I probably won't," Duo smiled as he picked up the cards and followed his fellow pilots out of the hangar. The moment they left the chatter managed to get worse. Heero slammed the door behind him and they abandoned the game as the five of them settled around the kitchen table.

"A couple of things…" Heero started.

"I swear, we should have let the Cowards take the damn binky. I don't think I can put up with Deathscythe if he's going to be a brainless idiot," Duo interrupted.

"So just like you then," Wufei said scathingly.

"Still better then the bitch of justice," Duo retorted.

"Stop bickering, you two," Quatre said routinely as he folded his hands on the table.

"Don't even get me started on the few lines I've heard from your Gundam."

"Shut up all of you," Heero said. He typed a few keys and then turned his laptop around. He then backed his chair over toward Trowa's so he could see as well. There was a small pause and a mini-wing replica danced as the loading icon. Duo raised an eyebrow and his mood was visibly better but other then that there was no reaction.

"So what are we waiting for?"

"I put in a live call with J, he should be on in a minute," Heero said, tapping his fingers impatiently.

The screen flickered and J's unwanted, familiar face swam into focus. There wasn't much to be said about his background, it looked pretty bland with white walls. There was audible chatter from behind him.

"Hello guys. I suppose you haven't called to chat about the weather?" J asked.

"Uh no. More like the problem you left us with. Or actually five problems when you break them into individual segments," Heero remarked.

"Wow, that happened faster then I thought it would. Glad I got out when I did," J muttered.

"What was that?" asked Wufei.

"Nothing. So…what happened?"

"You should know. You're the one who rigged our Gundams up to your freak-ass machine. They started talking and not only is that strange enough they're kind of hard to listen to," Duo explained.

"…Isn't that more your problem then theirs? Those are your mobile suits, won't you rely on them either way?"

_"I SWEAR I'LL KILL YOU HERE AND NOW!" _All eyes flitted to the hangar door.

"All the chatter might make it hard to pilot them," Quatre added.

"Well I'm sorry but I can't help you. It would be useless for me to come back. I have many duties here already and I've only been back for ten minutes," J stated.

"Where are you? Down the street?"

"No. I'm on one of the colonies…"

Wufei moved closer to the screen in frustration, as if he wanted to reach right in and kill the scientist. "That's impossible! You can't make it from here to…the grocery store in the amount of time you've been gone. Has it even been an hour?"

"Forty-five minutes to be exact. I utilized new technology."

Thunder crashed, they could hear it reverberating in J's background too.

"I hope it's the same technology you used to make our Gundams talk so you can be in as much agony as we are." Said Heero.

"More importantly, how can we fix it?" Trowa asked, getting right to the point.

"Hell if I know."

Wufei leapt at the computer but was pushed back by Heero who wanted to protect his only tool of entertainment.

"I swear I'll find wherever it is you're hiding and kill you with my bare hands if you don't. Maxwell's Gundam is more then enough justification."

The camera at J's end rattled and he glanced behind him before looked, panicked, back at the boys.

"We're getting some interference here. Could be space mines. I'll have to go check. I can barely see you anymore so call me back later and tell me how it goes. Cherrio!"

"…Bastard."

Quatre sighed and turned every which way. His eyes settled on the game board then to the laptop and back around to the kitchen. His mind went through the motions as to what the best solution to their current problem would be. He wasn't thinking about the talking Gundams or even tracking J down. No, Quatre's most pressing concern was getting the other four's attention away from said Gundams and said quack. He dived for the remote and switched on the barely used tv pushed in the corner of the room.

The perfect time for something convenient.

All heads turned toward the source of noise and a female reporter swam into view. She had full lips and a mock-serious expression on her face, a sign that only promised disaster.

"We have just received word that three of the five diplomats held in London by a faction calling itself 'The Cowardly Lion' have been released from the hospital. Reports indicate that the remaining two have died at the hands of this group when they fled the scene and blew up the conference center."

"Huh. Those idiots killed two British Diplomats? Who were they?" Heero asked. He decided to answer his own question as he pulled his computer onto his lap and the typing began anew.

"From what I read they were advocating the downgrading of mobile suit factories. They were working in the interest of so-called peace. That there isn't a need for such things," Quatre said. He turned up the volume as her idle, useless speech about how sad a day this was ended.

"Here is the video that their leader sent to all the major news providers yesterday morning…"

She trailed off and it cut to a video of a lesser quality. There was a sort of stage with a large, red banner in the background depicting a lion running from a replica mobile suit. There was a long pause and then a man in OZ uniform came into the limelight. He was young, maybe in his early thirties, but his expression was grim enough to give him the face of a fifty-year-old. He glared at the camera and spoke. There was a large scar going down the side of his face. Duo winced and pointed at the screen.

"Oh my God! It's scar! He was one of the Cowardly morons!" Duo said.

"We are the Cowardly Lions, former OZ though we still consider ourselves loyal to the organization. We have been in hiding ever since its downfall, waiting for an opportune time to resurface and take back the civilized world."

"Ooh, he said a big word like opportune. I'm impressed," Duo said.

"Predictable too. My bet was on wanting to take over the world or destroy it," Quatre added.

You could tell he was reading all of this from a card. He took too many pauses and the squinting and looking off camera were a dead giveaway.

"My units are located all over the world and in the colonies. We are heavily armed and have already gained control of several small territories on the Earth. We demand that all military factions surrender to us or else we will use force and battle to the death."

"Blah blah blah. I'm just surprised that the media's been able to keep it a secret for this long. This will definitely up our workload. Nothing like a bunch of trigger-happy elitists to get us on the move," Duo exclaimed, stretching.

"Easy enough but we do have a rather critical problem on our hands…" Quatre said.

"Yeah, if Scar's really their leader they have a critical problem too."

"I was thinking more of…"

Taking their cue, the pilots immediately heard muddled screams from the hangar. Heero's screen lit up a second later and the other's cell phones rang. They all opened theirs up and read the information provided.

"England?" Duo asked as he closed the top of his phone ceremoniously.

"Unfortunately yes," Wufei replied.

"Mission accepted."

"It seems we're going to try and take out the leader while this is still something laughable," Quatre said. Trowa nodded. Sigh city.

"So we have to take those loud things into a possibly hazardous battle right off the bat. I think I'll need some sleep first and yes, I know I'm in no position to speak, Wuffie," Duo said as he stood and stretched. Wufei glared as he took his leave of them. Natrually, Quatre and Trowa went back to Monopoly. It seemed that they would think about preparations at the last moment possible.

_Sorry this chapter is a little shorter then the others .I hope it's not too far-fetched or confusing for your reading enjoyment. Well, I'm off to produce more so till next time. Thanks for reading. _


	10. Chapter 10

_Warning(s): Yay! Double digits at last. Warnings will include but aren't limited to language, Relena-bashing though I did go an entire chapter without mentioning her, shounen-ai (It'll come eventually), oddness , and Gundams and characters significantly out of character. _

_Disclaimer: This is an uber-special tenth chapter disclaimer! Celebrate that I actually had enough patience to get it this far! It originally started out as a half-brained idea about the Gundams talking and I'm just now getting to it. Now I can't see the end. Oh yeah, I don't own Gundam Wing and I'm sure the people who do would report me to the men in white coats if they ever read PoM. _

**Parabola of Mystery **

Chapter Ten

The next morning they were ready to leave in record time. That is, it took them longer then ever before to get their things in order and to come up with a plan. They decided it would be easiest to take the carries to a discreet location and then go to the base in their Gundams. Heero and Trowa would start the initial distraction while the other three would go right up to the base and infiltrate to get to the 'leader'. Duo still constantly voiced the fact that he couldn't believe it was Scar, but that's what the mission had said and when the mission speaks they are all bound to listen.

The five pilots crept down, (well Duo crept, the others walked), to the hangar where it was strangely and uncomfortably silent.

Wufei was the first to approach his Gundam. True to his word, he had come to see Nataku the day before but he left soon after surmising that her machinery was still okay. It was just too hard to listen to their bickering, the loudest usually being from her. He sat inside the cockpit and as he touched the control panel, the screens came to life.

"_So he's back. You said we had a mission today."_

"Yes, Nataku. That's what we're preparing for."

Over at Wing, Heero didn't hesitate to bring his mobile suit to life. He heard a sort of yawning before the lights flickered on. Trowa and Quatre didn't have any trouble either. Thankfully, their mobile suits didn't say much. It was probably too early for Sandrock to say anything.

"_Mornings are evil…that's why I love them. Mwah. Let us go kill some adorable bunnies!_"

Or perhaps not. Last but not least, Duo touched the controls for Deathscythe with tangible fear. They didn't come on. He nudged them again to no avail. He sighed and hit the monitor.

"Hey Deathscythe now's not the time for beauty sleep."

The light was slow to come on but it finally did.

"_I'm up? Aww I was having a good dream too, it was about these five guys being kind of mad at me and then this mean lady kept yelling until I went to sleep_."

"Yeah, that happened yesterday. That was us and the crabby bitch was Nataku."

"_YOU WANT TO COME OVER HERE AND SAY THAT?"_

_"She has very good hearing," _Death whispered loudly.

Duo was about to answer but the other four pilots showed up on his screen.

"I'll be in carrier one," Heero said.

"I'll take two," Quatre chimed.

"One," said Trowa

"I'll be in two then," Wufei snapped.

"…I guess that leaves three for me," Duo said with mock excitement. He cut off the other screens and manned the controls.

"Insensitive morons. They just don't want to be in the same carrier as…"

"_Who? Mrs. Mean lady?"_

"Nevermind. Just keep moving."

They loaded the carriers with the least amount of chatter from the Gundams. Nataku was certainly nicer, but only marginally so, when it was confirmed that she wasn't going to be riding next to Deathscythe.

They were soon off, with Heero's carrier naturally in the lead. He jerked the controls upward and brought up a map to plan the course from the air. Despite the fact that he was a religious planner (the mission), he left routes until he was in the air. Their carrier was fairly quiet except for Wing's few failed attempts to make conversation with the other Gundam.

_"So what do you think of the mission? I haven't heard anything about it…"_

_"…"_

_"It's rare that we have this much silence. The other three idiots love talking about useless shit."_

_"…."_

_"Okay I get your point. Silence is good but it wouldn't kill you to say something every once in awhile."_

_"…"_

_"Fine. Be that way."_

The second carrier's pilots didn't speak too often as they followed but there was more then enough noise in the back.

"_HAHAAHAHA then I shall take over the world and destroy parts of it at my discretion! I will start with all the cute bunnies and then move to eradicate Santa Claus! Then everyone seventeen and up will be drafted for my army of evil!"_

_"Would you shut up?"_

_"NO! The simple fact that I keep talking means that I am getting on your nerves which is another part of my evil plan! MWHAHAHAH."_

_"Seriously. If you don't stop I'll self-detonate right here and your evil plans will go undone." _

_"…You have a promising career in evil too."_

_"Hmm. Still better then Deathscythe." _

Carrier number three was probably the loudest of them all as Deathscythe took the opportunity to get closer to his pilot. He would have tried physically if he could ever figure out independent movement and the dead would walk before he would ever get that on his own.

_"So Deathscythe, what do you want to talk about_?"

Duo sighed. "Duo."

"_What?"_

"I'm Duo. You're Deathscythe."

"_Oooooh. That's right. I'm Duo."_

"Deathscythe!"

"_What?"_

"Forget it. What did you want to say?"

_"I wanted to ask what you wanted to talk about."_

"Hmmm…how long have you been like this?"

_"Been like what?"_

"…Nevermind."

_"Are you my friend?" _

"I'm your pilot."

Now he sounded whiney, _"but I want you to be my friend. My best friend is Nataku but she's not here right now."_

Duo broke out laughing. "You seriously think that Nataku's your best friend? I don't think I've seen a machine hate another so much."

_"…We're good friends. That's why she's always talking to me and helping me know things." _

"What things?"

_"That I should give all the people we're going to meet today hugs!" _

"People? We're going into battle."

_"Yeah, all the other suits."_

Duo just smiled and kept back another laugh. "How about we sing something?"

_"Ohh I love singing. I'm a great singer. Let's sing the Row Row song." _

"…Okay."

----------

It was sometime later that they arrived at the drop off point. Four of the five pilots had found out the hard way that Duo and Death had been singing everything from 'The Row-Row song' to show tunes as the Gundam's comm. system was mysteriously stuck on broadcast and they couldn't get the carriers to stop picking it up. Need it be mentioned that as long as their comm. systems were tied up with the pair's song, they couldn't get any massages of "For the love of GOD STOP!" thorough. Thus the end of the flight couldn't come fast enough.

Wufei turned off the carrier as soon as they had landed and then debated massaging his ears. For some unexplained reason, it had gotten twice as loud when they were over the ocean. He kept his hands down and stood to go to his Gundam. It wouldn't be very masculine to whine and hold his aching ears. Besides, Quatre hadn't done it so it was out of the question.

"_Thanks for finally turning that shit off_. _Don't tell me the reason we were listening was because you actually liked it?" _Nataku asked as he entered the cargo bay.

"My ears are bleeding. Don't even joke Nataku," Wufei replied as he leapt up to stick his head into the cockpit.

_"I swear I'll figure out how to kill that scythe-wielding fu_-"

_"In sleep he sang to me, in dreams he caaaaaaaaame." _

_"-ck."_

Wufei smiled, though it was more a grimace. "Sorry, I have to get into contact with Maxwell now that we've touched down." They could only hear since the system seemed to be malfunctioning. Wufei and Quatre worked to restore it while they conversed.

"_Death_," Nataku said.

_"Yes. Death to all. The first phase of my _evil_ plan is already in motion. Soon the missiles will be set to launch on all the McDonalds of the world! Mwhahahaha."_

_"I don't want to ask because I don't really care but…why McDonalds?" _

_"That's where ninety-nine percent of humans under fifteen get their food." _

_"You're really giving Death-shit a run for his money."_

"Stop bickering," Quatre said routinely as he messed with Sandrock's controls.

Wufei tapped on the panel to try and make some conflicting noise on the other end.

"Maxwell, get off your lazy ass and answer. I'd rather be disemboweled then listen to your Gundam sing any longer."

"_While you're at it, Maxwell's pretty damn tone deaf too_."

_"Ohh thanks. I love getting bowels,"_Deathscythe said.

"I'm here…wait. You could hear us?" Duo asked.

"Regrettably so," Wufei snapped.

"We need to get in position at 1800 hours," Quatre explained.

"What time?"

"1800 hours," Wufei repeated.

"Uh…yeah what time is that again?"

"What? You don't know military time? How'd you ever make the cut to be a Gundam pilot? Was everyone on your colony disabled or old?" Wufei agonized.

"Well I used to have this awesome watch that had both military and real time. I think it got confiscated when I was captured by the Cowards. Those guys had relatively sticky fingers and that's not just figurative. I've never been good at military time, so sue me."

"_I'd do more then that_," Nataku interjected.

"Shut up, Altron," Duo snapped.

"_Nataku, bitch."_

"You said it."

_"Ohh Nataku's there? Tell her I said hi!"_ Death added.

_"How about we do the mission without them?" _

"Just SHUT THE HELL UP!" Quatre bellowed as normal communication was restored. Wufei and Duo's vids came up so they could stare effectively. Both of them looked quite shocked at his little outburst and Quatre suddenly felt self-conscious. He averted his eyes.

"Uh…sorry. It's bad enough when there are only two of you. I do lose it sometimes too."

"You blowing up colonies rings a bell," Duo said.

"_Silence, imbecile! That was a brilliant ploy, if only I had been there to choose the best targets," _Sandrock commented.

"We're wasting time. I'd like to be at the position at 1600 hours or four for those of you who can't do simple math," Wufei said through clenched teeth.

_"I still say we leave them here," _Nataku droned.

_"Or better yet, blow them up," _Sandrock said.

_"…Okay, maybe you're not so bad after all."_

_"Are we throwing a party?" _

"I'm turning you off now," Duo said and his feed went silent.

"See you there…I guess," Quatre sighed.

----------

As soon as the show tunes stopped Trowa and Heero had an easy time getting over to the base in question. They were in a more rural section of the UK which led them to think that the Coward's base would be well hidden but it wasn't. There was even a large replica of their symbol painted on the front of the five-story building and a sign reading 'secret base' mounted with great clarity. At least it was _located_ in the middle of nowhere.

They were ready to distract at 1700 hours (five o'clock for those of us like Duo). All they had to do was stand just outside of patrol range and wait for the others to contact them so the mission could get underway. They were pretty visible since there wasn't much in the way of trees but they figured it wouldn't be too big a loss to be seen ahead of time. Good fear tactic.

"I hope they put up a decent fight," Heero said as he leaned back to wait. Both of their Gundams hadn't said much, they seemed to understand that it was a situation that called for stealth (relatively speaking). In hindsight, the idea to have the two of them be the decoys was brilliant, strategically, since the other three could barely keep their…speakers shut.

"Hmm considering the military prowess they showed at Sorolaff, I highly doubt it. The fact that they even captured some diplomats speaks more for the men's lack of security rather then any coordination on the part of the Cowards," Trowa replied.

"What should you expect? They do admit it in their name," Heero said.

They nodded, in complete agreement, and the line was perfectly quiet. Anyone paired with Trowa, save Duo and Quatre, tended to fall into a natural sort of silence when things weren't terribly busy. Heero actually admired, as much as he was capable, Trowa's uncanny ability to only initiate conversation when he had something critical to say.

_"I'm here to warn you. The enemy is coming_!" Rang out Deathscythe's stupidly happy voice.

"The enemy is not coming. We're ready for them to get the enemy to 'come out' as in leaving the base," Duo said.

"That's our cue," Heero said. He soon disconnected from Duo's Gundam.

Trowa nodded and his attention was fully diverted to the battle at hand. His hands tightened on the controls.

"Come on, Heavyarms."

The Gundam crouched and then broke out into a run, gatling gun ready for action. Sirens suddenly sounded, oddly enough they made a melody that sounded suspiciously like 'Ding Dong the Witch is Dead'. Aries were the first out and Heavyarms stopped to take them out from his far position. Trowa put on his radar and found that the stationed Leo unit was heading back. He then noticed that the blip identified as 01 back where they started. That was odd.

"Heero, what are you waiting for?"

There was no answer. Trowa turned to face the other Gundam as he took out two Aries in a row.

"Hello? We have a job to do."

He turned his head as an Aries fired off several missiles. They soared past him, striking Wing right in the chest. Trowa's eyes widened slightly as the mobile suit toppled right onto its back. There was still silence even though they were still supposed to have the link up.

"Heero! Great."

_So what do you think? So ends the tenth chapter and my brain is officially dead. I realized while writing this chapter that I effectively doubled my character load with the Gundams. That's why I have their speech in italics even though it's a little annoying doing it every time. I hope it's not too confusing to tell who's speaking. Anyway, thanks for reading and tune in for the next installment of the emotionally-disturbed G-boys and their personality-challenged Gundams. _

_Oh and on another note, just in case anyone wanted to comment anonymously, I've enabled such reviews. I didn't even know there was an option…_


	11. Chapter 11

_Warning(s): I first must put oddness and the boys and their Gundams acting out of character. Truth be known, I think the Gundams have gone to a point past unexpected or out of character. Anyways there is language, some mild violence, and watch for shounen-ai and Relena-bashing in the future. _

_Negación: No poseo tan Gundam Wing. ¡Léalo y llore! Apenas en caso de que alguien que sabe hablar realmente español está leyendo esto presento a usted el resultado de tres años de español de la High School secundaria. No aprendí una cosa que es donde viene esta mutilación traducida adentro. De todas formas usted puede ir ahora lee la cuento, prometo que está en inglés. (basically: I don't own Gundam Wing and that isn't real spanish)_

**Parabola of Mystery **

Chapter Eleven

It was decidedly less dramatic then it appeared. Heero had merely been trying to get his Gundam to move when the missiles had launched so it was understandable that he couldn't avoid them. He had been shaken up a bit but it wasn't anything he couldn't handle. No, it was the strange, unexpected lack of movement that inspired Heero to be more then a little pissed.

He jerked on the controls. "Wing, move!"

"_Hmm, I think that we should stay here or better yet, retreat so I won't be pounded by these Aries," _The mobile suit answered with the same intensity as if he were commenting on the weather.

"What are you saying? The enemy's right in front of us. The MISSION."

"_Nah. I have a say in this too, you know." _

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Heero demanded.

"_Like you don't know. Every time I turn around I'm being blown up or taken apart, or being damaged and put back together by your half-assed efforts. I even had this insane Zero system put in me and now I can't get any peace. I'm tired of all this fighting so I say we stay out of it." _

Heero couldn't believe the words he was hearing from his one ally during war, sans the other four, they weren't important. He pounded on the screen before hitting every button imaginable.

"Come ON! I can't sit still and die while the enemy is attacking. Do you want to be even more damaged then you are now?"

"_Well I'm perfectly willing to go back if you are. Come on, we can go play a video game or two, I just downloaded this one the other day off the 'net. It's totally awesome. I already have the high score."_

Heero shook his head. "MOVE or I'll resort to extreme measures."

"_Just try it, punk."_

He apparently was quite willing to as he brought out his favorite feature on the entire Gundam: the self-detonation device. He lifted the top and smiled cruelly before hitting the button.

_"Self-detonation deactivated. Hehehe. In your face, Heero."_

Heero banged his head against the panel.

_"…I think it's his Gundam."_ Heavyarms said calmly as Trowa took out the rest of the unit. He nodded and brought up the connection between the other three.

"Wufei, Quatre, Duo, someone come in."

Over on the other side of the perimeter, crouched down in the trees for cover, the other three received Trowa's not-so-distressed-distress signal. All three brought up his line but one was faster then the others.

_"You've reached the evil hotline. Dial one if you are in a quandary of good versus evil. Press two if you wish to donate money to my evil cause. Press three if you wish to donate a picture of an adorable bunny for incineration. Dial four to leave a message but I won't get back to you for days on end."_

"Sandrock now's not the time for jokes. What is it, Trowa?"

They were then all connected then. Trowa didn't seem any worse for wear though his camera shook as he narrowly missed artillery fire from the enemy.

"Heero's Gundam doesn't respond when I call out to it. He's not moving nor has he blown up so we assume it's an internal problem."

_"…Weak bastards."_

"What would you like us to do?" Wufei asked in annoyance. He was already irritated enough that he had two partners for such a simple task…especially considering the company.

"Well you don't all need to infiltrate. Quatre or Duo could come and help out."

_"Ohh ohh I wanna help. I'm good at doing things," _Deathscythe volunteered.

_"I'd like to challenge that," _Nataku commented.

"Cool, we'll be there in a second," Duo added.

_"Be still my beating heart." _

Deathscythe wasted no time in rushing out toward the other side of the base. Despite Duo's efforts to lead him all the way around so he wouldn't draw enemies to the other's position, the Gundam happily pranced a direct path through. It included the enemy base as the suit's shoulder and hip scraped the side, taking off some of the brick. Duo sighed.

"Death, just hold it for a sec."

The Gundam stopped and several Leos started clambering over to his position. So much for stealth. The now overworked pilot took a deep breath and fidgeted with his braid before he took to the controls again.

"Okay let's blow these Cowards out of the damn base," Duo cheered.

_"Yaay!" _

Deathscythe started to run again but as Duo indicated for him to bring forth his beam scythe, nothing much happened. He input the command faster but that certainly didn't help.

"Deathscythe! Come on!"

_"What?"_

"Use your fucking scythe!"

_"My whating what?"_

The arm was working and the handle was in hand but it was entirely unresponsive. Duo pulled it up and down to wave before his face.

"This scythe! Your weapon!"

The Leo's open-fired. At least they were dumb enough to think that regular bullets would do more then cause gentle vibrations in the cockpit. Duo bit his lip and tried to calm down.

"Okay. Deathscythe, I know you can do this. Just listen to the command I'm putting in. Despite what Nataku said, these are the bad guys and we have to…get rid of them," Duo explained.

_"Oohh we have to explode them? I'm good at that! Splooode!" _

In a random act of obedience, Deathscythe actually listened to the command that Duo entered. The problem was that he still had the scythe in front of his head and as the greenish double beam came on it sliced right through. There certainly was 'sploding' but it was to the Gundam's head.

_"I…hurted myself." _

"Holy shit, did Deathscythe just take himself out?" Wufei asked as he stood up to see the events unfolding just a mile away. His chamber was currently filled with Nataku's laughter.

_"Why are you surprised?"_

_"How deliciously evil."_

"Duo, come in…do you think he's alright?" Quatre asked in horror.

"It didn't look like it hit the cockpit but you never know," Wufei replied.

They were both sitting ducks for the rest of the patrolling regiment. Before Wufei could even think of a plan he saw the blips on his radar.

"We have to complete this mission but I can't stand by and let them attack us while we're trying to get in," Wufei yelled as he turned Nataku toward the enemy.

"I'm going to go help Du...whoa. Sandrock!" Quatre yelled as his Gundam took off the same way that Nataku was going, away from the fallen Deathscythe.

_"MWAHAHA destruction for all. You cannot know the satisfying pleasure when you rip off the enemy suit's head and drink the sweet, oily nectar inside nor do you know the thrill of the last spark before they explode! Cowardly cowards,"_ Sandrock yelled as he nearly flew into the enemy. Quatre reacted quickly but he was slightly panicky as the Gundam drew its weapons of its own initiative. He did let him input the commands but they went faster then normal and the Sandrock moved with the swiftness of a well-trained human.

_"Whoohoo! Take 'em all out! Weaklings."_

Nataku made a circuit around the straggling enemies on the sidelines, slicing through them easily with her trident. She and Wufei were in perfect unison; all thoughts of saving Deathscythe from the Leos that still pounded the crumpled Gundams form again and again were lost to him.

Meanwhile, Heero still had a slight amount of difficulty dealing with his Gundam. The good news was that the Aries had left him alone when Trowa blew then up with a few choice bullets from his gatling gun. The bad news was that Wing was still insistent that he not participate in battle.

"_See? They're not focusing on us anymore. We can just wait here and I'm sure the other suckers will take care of the battle for us."_

Heero continued pounding his head against the panel. "The…mission…the…mission." He repeated this mantra over and over, hitting after each word.

_"Go ahead and keep at it. You won't change my mind. No pain, no gain, that's my motto." _

"The…mission…"

Over on the other side of the battlefield, Duo was in a bit of a panic himself. He had nearly been burnt to death when he felt the after effects of the beam scythe; it was only a few inches away from breaking into the cockpit. He had then slammed his head against the monitor as the Gundam went down and now he was subjected to all sorts of hits and taunts at the hands of the enemy. It was bad enough that he couldn't escape for fear of being taken out by the cowards. What made it worse was that Deathscythe was down he couldn't bring up the comm. link.

"Damn! Why did you have to go and do that?" Duo whined as he rubbed his sore head.

"_Owwies…that really hurt. Why are the Wewos hitting me?" _

Duo sat bolt upright but he hit his head as the Gundam lurched once more.

"Deathscythe! When the hell did you come back?" The screen was still pitch black.

_"I've been up a lil bit but I didn't wanna get up cuz these Wewos are trying to get me," _he said.

"Leos. Can you bring up the link between the others?" Duo asked.

_"…The what?"_

"The link. Communication. Uh…talk talk with the other Gundams. Oh, call Nataku! You think she's your best friend, right?"

_"Ohh Nataku! Yaay…." _

There was a long pause in which nothing happened. Duo's smile faltered and he jerked at the controls again.

"So…what happened?"

_"I can't do that…I dunno…I just wanna sit here and hum…"_

So the blow to the head, while it miraculously hadn't taken out all functions, Deathscythe was even dumber then before, which was some feat. Duo sighed.

"I guess I resign myself to whatever's in store for me…"

As soon as they had taken out all the enemies in the area, less than five minutes with the both of them combined, Wufei seemed to snap out of his justice-endued trance. He turned Nataku toward where Deathscythe was being beaten into a black and white scrapheap.

"Maxwell will die if we don't at least draw the enemy off."

Nataku scoffed, but it came through with a beeping sound. "_Like I care. The weak die, remember?"_

_"_I think that he's more along the lines of stupid…besides he is our comrade no matter how much of a damned moron," Wufei replied.

Nataku's radar showed an alarming number of new blips. "_Look, I see a new armada. Maybe they called in reinforcements."_

Wufei hit the radar, causing them to go away immediately. "No there's not. They can barely put up a fight. I don't think the Cowards know how to use the phone to do something so smart. We have to help him. Go now."

The Gundam didn't move. Wufei scowled.

"I demand it. You are more then capable of handling those measly Leos."

As they continued bickering the Leos seemed to think that their work tenderizing the Deathscythe was done. They each grabbed what remained of the arms and prepared to haul it off. Wufei pointed.

"I don't want to save Maxwell any more then you do but Winner's still occupied and I don't even know what the hell happened to Barton."

Sandrock was currently flying around and trying to catch the trees on fire. The problem was whenever he would make a spark his manic laugher and jumping up and down would cause enough of a wind to put it out.

"_Fine, I'll go but you have to wash over any part of me that touches Death-shit fifteen times over."_

"…Deal."

They moved forward, finally in agreement. Nataku laughed as she was back in action. Her loud battle voice reached a new level of intensity.

_"Hehe, time to show them that justice is as much of a bitch as I am!" _

"We definitely agree there."

Needless to say they were distracted by the other two of five Leos on the way over and by the time they were detangled from the rush of battle Deathscythe was nowhere to be found. Nataku and Wufei stood in complete silence, even as Heavyarms moved to meet them.

"So what happened?" Trowa asked as his screen came up.

_"Don't ask."_

"HEY! NATABITCH! WU-MAN! I'M DOWN HERE!"

The two Gundams looked down. Duo jumped furiously, clutched his head, and then resumed waving like mad. Wufei felt a spark of anger at his sudden appearance.

"What about your Gundam?" Wufei asked angrily.

"I need a ride in so I can get him…or more precisely so you can get him. I wasn't about to sit by and let the Cowards take me hostage again so I bailed while they were distracted with you. You know, you could have gotten the two that were dragging him off first.

Nataku laughed again, _"I say we cut our losses and leave now."_

Trowa hit the switch to broadcast to Quatre and hopefully to Heero as well.

"It seems we need a new plan."

_Thus ends another chapter. As always I hope you enjoyed it and I shall madly type more material. Until next time, you've been warned. Thanks for reading._


	12. Chapter 12

_Warning(s): Relena-bashing and shounen-ai are overarching themes, one more apparent then the other. The real blatant ones are mild violence, not-so-mild language, the G-boys and their Gundams out of character, oddness, and a dash of craziness too. _

_Disclaimer: The rights and so on for Gundam Wing are the property of the people who own it. Kind of vague, I know but at least I don't claim ownership. This is an even numbered chapter; I always seem to have problems thinking up disclaimers for the even ones…or is it the odd ones? Whatever, this is still very fun to write so I hope that you're enjoying it too. _

**Parabola of Mystery **

Chapter Twelve

"So you bailed?" Heero queried as he heard Duo come to his conclusion. It was quite a long, detailed account that involved pirates and cowboys chasing him through the forest before the…intermission for their mission even started. No one bought it.

They were currently holed up ten miles outside of the Coward's base. You would think that after being attacked by five Gundams they would have beefed up security but there hadn't been more then one Leo unit sent out since the attack ended and they didn't tend to go outside of a five mile track. Thus the boys were perfectly safe and free to talk in person while Trowa and Wufei tired to figure out how to pitch the EZ-tent. You would also think that one of the five would have experience in putting up tents but life was full of little surprises.

"It's supposed to go like this…you hold that Barton…and I hit this little button."

Trowa was sprawled over two ends a shoulder's width apart. He looked like he was trying to keep a plastic sheet from flying away. Wufei rolled out another section and took one last look at the directions before he hit the little green button. Quatre turned as there was an audible 'pop' and all that could be seen was Wufei's head and one of Trowa's legs at an impossible angle.

"No. I guess that wasn't right…you need to tie it to a tree?"

Heero predictably ignored them, "great work, Duo. You should have just handed them your Gundam the moment you came onto the battlefield, save them the trouble."

Duo pointed to Wing, looking shiny and new as it loomed over them.

"You didn't even use your damn Gundam! Don't complain to me about not doing anything in battle. You could have just stayed here and saved the fuel."

_"Hey, no need to be ugly. I just wanted to make a stand about my rights," _Wing said.

"What rights? You're a talking hunk of Gundanium. I think that you have a long way to go till you can assert your rights. What are you going to start a picket and Vulcan campaign?" Duo asked.

_"You're supposed to be the fun one."_

"Near death-experiences will sometimes do this to me. Besides, my hair looks terrible…all my supplies are in Deathscythe," Duo complained as he took his braid in hand and sighed at its ragged condition.

"We really need to stop talking about the battle and plan out what we're going to do next," Quatre said distractedly.

He was a little busy watching the progress of the other two while they still tried to pitch the tent. Now they had four ends stretched as far as they could reach. They were each tied by separate ropes to the far off trunks of large oaks. Wufei squinted at the instructions and hesitantly pressed the button again. The trees strained under the weight and the tethers snapped, smothering them with the plastic tent.

_"…Stupid men."_

"Don't comment unless you're willing to contribute, Nataku," Wufei said as he unraveled himself from the tent.

_"I think it's deliciously evil how the constructors of the directions made them so hard to follow. It truly proves that all global conglomerates are pure evil! Mwhahah."_ Sandrock said.

_"I don't think that a tent supplier really counts as a conglomerate…and would you stop that damn laughing?" _Nataku asked.

"What are we going to do?" Duo asked as he stretched out on the grass, trying to forget his hair for the moment.

"It's as simple as infiltrating. Since they're expecting us, I would gather that they would be really surprised to find us in there. They're collective IQ is probably still below fifty," Heero stated.

"You guys go assassinate. I'll go in and get my Gundam," Duo added.

"I bet they have all sorts of security measures in place," said Quatre as he managed to get his attention back to the conversation he was trying to be involved in.

"I'm trained in stealth operations, remember?" Duo asked winningly.

"One tends to forget once they've actually met you," Wufei said from across the clearing.

"_You guys have a good time. I'll stay here and watch the tent," _Wing said.

"No you don't you're going to battle if I have to go in and start cutting wires," his pilot threatened.

_"Damn you."_

_"I'm sure that Zero will find some way to slack off anyway," _Nataku laughed.

Wufei nodded toward her as he and Trowa tried a new tactic. He couldn't speak as he had the paper in-between his teeth while he and Trowa wrapped the tent around a tree. He pressed the button and they were both thrown thirty feet backward.

Tired of watching them struggle, Quatre got to his feet and dug out the instructions from the pathetic tent. He glanced down at them and held up his small flashlight.

"Uh what have you been reading? It's pretty simple."

Wufei leapt down from the tree behind Quatre and ran a hand over his shiny, solid hair just to be sure. He grabbed the directions out of the blonde pilot's hands and squinted at them again.

"I suppose I should wear my damn glasses every once in awhile."

_"I repeat my earlier statement: stupid men." _

"It's a one step tent. All you have to do is lay it out and then press the button…"

Trowa detangled the tent from itself and did as Quatre instructed before hitting the green button. The tent slowly rose and the pointed ends dug into the soft ground. Soon it was a large tent with more then enough room to suit all five of them. Wufei crumpled the white paper up and threw it over his shoulder as he joined Heero and Duo by the fire. Well, it wasn't a 'fire' as much as it was just a large light that they had substituted for a fire. Either way it was hot and gave off a lot of light. The biggest danger came from staring directly at it; the shine could cause premature blindness.

"Maxwell will go in and get his Gundam but how is he going to get it out?" Wufei asked.

"Good question Wuffie," Duo replied.

Wufei threw a mysterious scrap of machinery onto his stomach. Duo coughed and rolled out from under it. He sat up, rubbing his midsection but Wufei's personal mission still remained unaccomplished as he still smiled.

"I'll need someone else to help me haul him out if he's not responsive. When I was in there he spoke…"

_"Unfortunately" _

"But no matter what I did the power wouldn't come on. I have a pretty good idea of where he hit so I wouldn't expect Deathscythe to be able to move around till I've had a chance to repair him."

_"Hmm I say we leave him like that. You can always make a new Gundam. We can even still call him Death-shit."_

"Please don't try and help me," Duo said sweetly toward Wufei's Gundam.

"_But I'm just too eager to assist you."_ She replied with just as much venom.

"Stop it!" Quatre chided.

"We move as soon as you're ready. The element of surprise is all we have when taking present circumstances into account. I REFUSE to fail this mission," Heero's head turned as he said his last sentence. Wing scoffed.

_"Real big threat there. I REFUSE to be a tool. Gundams are forever! We deserve rights too!"_

_"I will only consent to that if we can have an evil bureaucracy under an even eviler dictatorship! Mwhahaha our seal and emblem will be me blowing up a colony of adorable bunnies!"_

_"Fuck-ing idiots." _

"Wait…if we're moving out ASAP then why did they put up the tent?" Duo asked.

Wufei let that sink in before he clenched his fists and looked directly at the 'fire' in his anger.

"Oh shit, my eyes!"

Trowa shrugged. "Something to do, I guess."

"Let's go before any more of us lose our minds."

----------

They all got back, or retreated depending on how you look at it, into their Gundams. Their scrapped-together-at-the-last-minute plan revolved around Quatre assisting Duo in getting his Gundam out while the other three moved in to assassinate Scar and fulfill the actual mission. Thus it was a bit of a mystery as to why he decided to ride in Nataku's hand.

"I keep telling you, Wing is likely to get me blown up while he stands in the middle of battle without lifting a finger, Trowa is just too rocky, and Sandrock is a complete psycho. I'm sad to say that the safest place to be is with Nataku."

"_Just keep making points, Maxwell,"_ she replied.

They left the tent where it was.

There was no need for decoys as it was so dark and the base had so little lighting that the massive Gundams were entirely unnoticed by the pathetic number of Guards outside the base. There was a visible hangar in the back but there was a narrow walkway to get in so the Gundams had to go in single-file. Nataku went first.

"You're doing this on purpose," Duo said.

_"Hey if the enemy comes suddenly then I get first pick and I'll be able to get rid of you. Two for one." _

"And you're supposed to be the one trained in stealth! Have you forgotten that we're supposed to be infiltrating, going _unnoticed_?" Wufei hissed.

"Poignant observation."

The hangar was barely filled, only two Aries and three baffling Cancer were in residence with no human guards in sight. It all seemed like some elaborate trap…but the three of them knew better.

Duo leapt off Nataku's hand and brought out his gun as he rounded the corner of the iron walkway toward the large door that led to the rest of the complex. He shook his head and waited for the others to disembark from their Gundams.

"This is just sad. It's even worse that we were technically sent back by these goons," Wufei commented as he took a good look around.

_"I will never admit defeat. I blame Deathscythe." _

"There's that too. If you're going to stay here and actually be of use then you can't say…ANYTHING," Heero explained as he faced the four Gundams.

_"…Fine you bastard. I'll keep my womanly banter to myself." _

_"Mwah! I promise nothing!" _

_"You're seriously insecure. First I go to all the trouble of bringing you here and now you make more demands of me? Get real...is what I would say but since being quiet would allow me the least amount of effort…or activity. Sure." _

_"…"_

"Leave them to find out the hard way," Wufei said. Heero and Trowa fell into step behind him and they were off toward the interior of the base soon afterward. Quatre and Duo hung around while the braided pilot dug something out of his hair.

"I stuck a tracer on Death before I left so it'll be easier to find him."

"Good. Then all we have to do is figure out how to get Sandrock to him."

Duo glanced at the small screen imbedded in his tracking device. "He shouldn't be too far away. I guess we should head in and look for some sort of lab or large room. I guess they're trying to take him apart."

"The talking should be enough to get them to stop," Quatre said lightly.

"No. I told him that we were playing a game. He couldn't say anything until I came back or I'll take away his BoBo."

"What?"

Duo smiled and led the way out of the mobile suit hangar.

"His BoBo. It's just a motor I got off an old blender but I added a head and ears with mismatched parts from other things…"

"When did you have time to do that?"

"Well when you stay up all night because you had too much coffee and then were threatened within an inch of your life to be quiet after dancing for two hours straight you tend to run out of things to do."

They trailed off as they could hear shouts and gunfire from the corridors in front of them. Duo smiled.

"The freaks can go ahead and take care of the Cowards for us. I hate being a decoy."

Quatre smiled indulgently. "I'm sure they don't think of you like that."

Duo pushed open one of the sets of double doors to make sure they weren't going to stumble upon his Gundam. It was still a little ways off on the radar but you could never be too sure…it was a really small screen.

"Heh I heard them talking just the other day about how they would send me in first. I think the direct quote was 'Duo can be the bait'."

Quatre sighed.

----------

The more physically inclined of the five had an easy time moving through the ranks of surprised Cowards as they went toward the center rise in the building. The most amusing was the one man who was eating a jelly donut at the time. He was so surprised to see teenagers in their midst that he squeezed the pastry, causing the jelly to spew out on the other side.

As they expected, the soldiers of the former fringe OZ unit were ill prepared for their coming so soon after the initial attack. They only received sparse resistance and as a result most of the men and women were merely knocked unconscious and locked into rooms so they were more out of the way. So much for stealth.

They estimated that Scar would be waiting in the highest room in the most central part of the building and therefore the place with the worst access from any corner of reference. Not only were they right, it had a private entrance. The trio crept up the last flight of stairs and Trowa kicked the door open as the other two rolled in.

The desk was sparse but there was a one-way window that took up one entire wall and looked over the wonderfully scenic parking lot located in the back. The office chair was turned away but they could sense movement the moment they entered.

Perhaps to further create tension, the chair remained where it was, without turning or moving in the slightest. The three easily walked up and stood just behind the desk but it still remained still. Wufei scowled (you know it was coming) and he reached out to impatiently turn the chair around.

The sight that met their eyes was not of a man or even of a woman. There was definitely something in the chair though. It was a stuffed, cartoonish lion sitting on about three tons of plastic explosives. There was a little sign pinned right about its head that read '_Gotcha'. _

A wire had been twisted leading from the lion all the way down to a smaller bomb set on the bottom of the chair. As the three took this odd sight in, the light in the plush animal's hands went from green to flickering red.

_Thanks for reading, more on the way. _


	13. Chapter 13

_Warning(s): There shall be oddness, unnatural characters, other stuff eventually, language, Nataku, Sandrock insanity, etc. _

_Disclaimer: This is the thirteenth chapter so I'm not going to push my luck (ha! Luck, bad puns galore!). Gundam Wing does not belong to me or my affiliates. I would like to stress that it would be cool to own it or to have had anything to do with it so I guess I'll settle with writing fanfiction._

**Parabola of Mystery **

Chapter Thirteen

_ BOOM_

Duo looked up as he surreptitiously turned a corner, with Quatre close behind. They both stopped in their tracks as the entire building shook from the after effects of the explosion. Duo's hands slid on the slick wall leaving him to smack backwards into the other pilot.

"What do those morons think they're doing? Does any part of this operation call for blowing the place up?" Duo asked.

"We can only hope it was them who initiated the explosion," Quatre said.

They waited for the shaking to stop before they resumed rushing through the white-walled halls. Duo kept a constant eye to the tracer. For some reason, whenever he thought they were getting close the blip would suddenly seem that much farther away. As he watched there was a momentary lapse before it disappeared and was suddenly much farther. He stopped in place, without warning.

"Oof," Quatre cried as he ran into his friend. He luckily had good balance and only took a few staggering steps backward. Duo ignored this and squinted at his tracer before holding it up to the dimming overhead light. The explosion must have made quite an effect on the base itself, the power was on the fritz.

"What is it?" Quatre whispered, rubbing his nose.

"Shh, I'm concentrating."

Duo kept his eyes wide open and stood perfectly still in an unusual show of patience. He literally stared at the tracer, keeping his eyes open though they trembled with the need to blink. The device cleared for half of a half of an instant but Duo saw it. He threw the small item to the floor before smashing it with his foot.

"Damn Cowards. Someone must have caught on to the one I put in Deathscythe. It keeps moving the signal around."

Quatre merely gaped in disbelief. It was more due to the strange amount of competence it would take to find the tracer and then interrupt the signal then anything else.

"So does that mean that we've just run this far in with no way of telling where your Gundam is?"

Duo sighed, "yeah so we're just gonna have to open a shitload of doors."

The Arab pilot decided to join Duo in his sigh. The both stared at each other for half a second in mutual exasperation before they were off without a word. They now had to deal with a combination of hacking locks and breaking down the doors that wouldn't open due to the power situation. All the doors looked the same and there were far too many so it was slow progress. Oddly enough, the base had a surprising number of custodial closets.

"This isn't working," Quatre said as they hacked into yet another door. As it opened, both young men leapt back as a sea of low-level, Cowardly Lion employees spilled out. The other pilot's handiwork, no doubt. Duo slammed the door shut and moved to the next one before answering.

"…I know, but we have to find him…ah screw it." Duo threw his head back and cupped his hands around his mouth to magnify his already nerve gratingly loud voice. "DEATHSCYTHE! I KNOW YOU CAN HEAR ME! THE GAME'S OVER."

He stopped as his voice bounced around and back to him, especially enjoying the word 'over'. Quatre was about to say something along the lines of that not being an acceptable strategy when they heard an even louder reply.

_"DEATHSCYTHE!"_ The idiotic, almost childish voice could only mean one thing. Duo smiled and ran down the hallway. He stopped at the next crossroads and yelled around.

"YOU'RE DEATHSCYTHE!"

There was a long pause and _"I AM?"_

"YES. JUST…SING SOMETHING TILL WE GET THERE."

If it weren't enough that the base echoed everything above a whisper like a ping-pong ball, now everyone else had to do with Deathscythe's rendition of Kookaburra. Even sadder, the Gundam was in such a state that he could only remember the first line so he went with it. Again and again and again and again and…you get the point.

"Wow, I wouldn't have thought it but this is a brilliant strategy," Quatre called, louder then usual as he had his hands blocking his ears. Duo smiled and pressed on in the lead. He would stop at each new divide in the cavernous hallways, listen for half a second, and then choose a direction. They reached the epicenter, where it was loudest, in no time at all.

"I think we're in luck," Duo said as he smashed the panel next to the sliding door. Taking it out allowed the door to open slightly and Duo wedged his hand in the small gap, forcing the door to one side. He and Quatre entered to find themselves in a pitch black room. The blonde pilot brought out his hand flashlight and searched around the door to find a control panel or some sort of light source.

"Here we go," Quatre said victoriously a minute later.

The room lit up with a soft yet eerie green light emitting from tube shaped structures that ran vertically from the ceiling to the floor. The room was only lit halfway, on their side, making it feel like the rest of it faded into black. The pair felt utterly small; it seemed that they had wandered underground as the room itself looked larger then the entire base. There was a large mesh walkway far above the floor where they stood that led off into sections; each one was meant to hold mobile suits from the way they were structured. There were at least one hundred places, if the room were complete the suits would each be framed on either side by the strange lights.

Duo ran out on the walkway. Three spaces to the left his beloved Gundam sagged against the wall. Deathscythe looked even worse framed in green.

"You can stop now," he said easily to get his Gundam to stop singing.

_"HELLO DEATHSCYTHE!"_

"It's Duo and you can stop yelling too," Duo said.

_"YELLING? WHO'S YELLING? I WANTED TO BE QUIET FOR YOU SO WE CAN GET OUT. THESE MEN WERE REALLY MEAN TO ME. THEY PRODDED PLACES I DIDN'T KNOW I HAD."_

"Yeah, we really need to get him out of here," Duo said. He had to actually resort to covering his ears along with Quatre.

"How are we going to get Sandrock down here? How did they even get your Gundam here?" Quatre asked.

"I would think that they came in from the other side…" Duo started.

_"THEY BROUGHT ME DOWN ON A VELLYATOR."_

"What?"

_"A vellyator. Sorry you probably couldn't hear me, I was speaking in my small inside voice." _

"An elevator. It must be on the other side," Duo translated.

_"I WANNA GO HOME. CAN NATA HELP?"_

"We're going to help you get home soon, Deathscythe. You just have to wait here while we get Sandrock."

_"SANDY?"_

"Yes."

Duo smiled and reached over the long balcony to pat his Gundam before he moved to the ladder at the end of Deathscthe's station. Quatre stayed back as he was still looking at the Gundam.

"Quatre, stop stalling we need to get back to Sandrock and I'm sure the others are already done by n…"

Duo's words were rudely interrupted by the metal ladder breaking off from the rest of the catwalk. Quatre heard the squealing of metal on metal and he rushed over to see.

There was a loud clatter as the metal hit the hard concrete floor below but Duo was nowhere in sight. Quatre's eyes searched like mad for his friend they widened as he saw that Duo had managed to leap over to his Gundam. He currently used a twisted piece of Gundanium from the suit's leg as his precarious handhold.

"What the hell, this place looks shiny and new," Duo said through clenched teeth. There was only room for a one-handed grip but he still dangled dangerously far from the ground.

"Duo hold on, I'll help you!" Quatre said. He glanced around all over for a length of rope or some form of help for his fellow pilot.

_"IS DEATHSCYTHE OKAY_?" Deathscythe asked.

"I'm Duo and I'm not okay. Please stop shouting," Duo said irritably.

_"I'M SORRY."_ It was louder then ever.

"Shit. Stop looking and just be sure to help me out of here in case things don't go well," Duo said with a slight laugh as his fingers slipped.

"Duo!" Quatre called as he moved to gape over the railing.

He fell but close to the Gundam, scraping the leg with the right side of his body before he hit the foot and then fell from there to the ground, face up. Quatre gaped, doubting that his friend was even alive until he saw his head loll to the side. Quatre could barely make out movement but he still breathed. The Arab moved backward from the railing and sighed with relief.

_"IS DEATHSCYTHE OKAY?"_

"No…but I think Duo is just out…maybe a broken bone or two but that's better then it could be," Quatre answered.

----------

Quite a while before Duo fell to his unconsciousness, something just as dramatic happened at the top of the base (this is just full of little twists today). The three stared at the soon-to-explode Lion and Trowa and Wufei did the best instinctive reaction of all, they turned tail (pardon the pun) and ran. The two dashed as one out the door and launched themselves down the hall toward the private staircase. It was then they realized that they two were the only ones in the vicinity.

Heero rushed forward and brought out his handgun before firing a few quick shots into the window. He obviously wasn't thinking entirely straight or their enemy knew his nature and the glass was entirely bulletproof.

"Shit," Heero muttered as he turned to make a mad dash for the door. This was about the instant that the other two realized that he wasn't present and the time that the bomb was ready to go off. Heero was thrown clear out of the room and into the corridor as the place blew up with a small shower of fluff.

Wufei and Trowa were readily safe where they took refuge and thus only the plaster in the ceiling shook onto their heads harmlessly. On the other hand, the building sure shook like there was an earthquake.

As things settled down they both finally rose to see what had become of the suicidal member of the group. Wufei kicked the door in and they found that the small corridor leading to the boss's room was no longer a corridor. They could clearly see out the top of the building. It was officially outside; they were surrounded by the night sky. Heero was nowhere in sight.

"Hmmm the blast wasn't as bad as I thought it would be," Trowa said. He crossed his arms and further surveyed the damage. Wufei still glanced around the remains of the room for Heero. His eyes settled on a rather large part of wall that had collapsed almost wholly intact. Wufei crouched down and pulled on the other side of the wall. It was slow going but he eventually managed to get it up a couple of feet above the ground. Trowa turned and crouched down to look underneath.

"I'll give him this, he an incredibly lucky bastard," the calculating pilot said as he reached in and dragged Heero out by the strangely strong strap of his green tank. Wufei let out a long breath and dropped the piece of wall when he was fully out.

"I have to agree," Wufei said as he compulsively cleaned his hands on the sides of his pants. Heero was out cold and he was covered in nasty scratches but he was still perfectly whole.

"This mission is as good as failed," Wufei added as he turned and headed toward the door.

They ran down the still steady stairs, though the overhead lights flickered on and off in the aftershock of the blast. Trowa didn't complain that he had the burden of Heero, especially since it was Wufei that the remaining guards targeted since he was in front. Apparently the blast had sent them all running. The men fell one after another in the swift pilot's wake; two or three of them comically ran from him while screaming like little girls.

When they got down to the ground level things were strangely quiet but that was where they had found a number of worker-bee employees. They relaxed but it was a sort of uneasy calm.

"Which way did we go from here?" Wufei asked as they stood at a white-walled passage with three possible routes.

_"DEATHSCYTHE! COME ON, I'M NOT EVEN SLEEPING. LALALALAL WAKE UP TIME." _

The two started and Wufei turned to the right. They heard, from far off, the unmistakable sound of Deathcythe's voice.

"Somehow I'm not surprised," Wufei said and they continued on to the right. He skidded to a stop as they nearly ran headfirst into Quatre. The blonde pilot was wide-eyed and hurried but he calmed down slightly as he recognized his companions.

"Duo needs our help. He fell from…well he's unconscious. What happened to Heero?"

"Let's just say that the head of the Cowards wasn't in."

"You mean that explosion wasn't on purpose?" Quatre asked.

"No, I'd say it was pretty damn purposeful. We underestimated the enemy after all," Wufei said bitterly.

"Well I need to get Sandrock so we can retrieve Deathscythe but I am a little nervous about just leaving Duo there…" Quatre said.

Wufei regarded him with a deadpan stare. "Then why didn't you bring him with you?"

To this Quatre averted his eyes and clasped his hands together nervously.

"It was due to one of the ladders that he got hurt in the first place and I really couldn't figure out any other way down. I thought that I'd at least get Sandrock first."

Trowa shook his head and he put his free hand on his waist as they continued to talk right in the middle of the enemy base. He carried Heero not unlike the way one does a heavy sack.

"I'll take Heero out and I can even drag Wing with Heavyarms if that's necessary. I'll leave the two of you to take care of Duo," Trowa said and then he was off. The other two watched him move calmly down the hall; though he was hurrying it certainly didn't seem like it.

"So…" Quatre started, suddenly feeling the odd break in conversation.

"I can get Maxwell's Gundam…" Wufei said.

"Oh I thought that I'd get Sandrock since Nataku doesn't like Deathscythe so..much."

The Chinese pilot sighed and crossed his arms. No way was he going to be the one to take the braided wonder in. No way.

Wufei ended up being the one charged with the task of retrieving Duo.

_So ends the unluckily numbered chapter. The start of it came quite easily and I apologize that it's not (intentionally) terribly amusing and if it was anyway then…good for me and I promise (wink) it was supposed to be that way. Thanks for reading. _


	14. Chapter 14

_Warning(s): Oddness, character and Gundam deviations, other stuff eventually, language, and the more vocal Gundams are a danger unto themselves. _

_Disclaimer: Nothing belongs to me but specifically Gundam Wing doesn't belong to little 'ol me. Again I state that it would be cool if it did but then I'd ruin it by writing strange ideas like are shown in this story. Oh yeah, and if anyone notices the slightly obscure reference to Castlevania, I don't own that either. Heh, enjoy. _

_So sorry for the delay. It took forever for me to get to the end of this chapter and I had a terrible case of writer's block. _

**Parabola of Mystery **

Chapter Fourteen

Quatre ran back toward the hangar where they had arrived in their Gundams. He thought that he would have a hard time finding his way back since he really couldn't fully remember the way in. It was simplified when he could hear voices, familiar voices, from a distance.

"_The hell? How did Wing just move on his own like that? I can't seem to figure it out."_

_"Mwah! It's because you haven't given in to the forces of evil. Join my adorable eradicating team and I shall tell you the secret of independent movement. Then we can commence my plan to take over Southeast Asia."_

_"Just shut up already."_

_"Never! __I shall continue to 'bug' you until you give in! Persistence is 9/10 of evil after all."_

_"Dare I ask what the last part is?"_

_"It is split between devices of DOOM and…paperwork. All the evils of the world. Mwah. I want to push for it to be 5/10 paperwork. More annoyance for all!"_

_"Shut it or I'll force myself to quickly learn how to move and you'll end up worse the Death-shit." _

_"Then we shall get giant bottles of Pepsi and combine them with Mentos in the living room as to create a large, sticky mess! True evil!"_

Quatre appeared in the hangar then, but the two didn't appear to register this fact.

_"You do realize that nothing you say makes any sense, right?"_

_"Only to those who don't understand how evil works. I understand the beauty that is evil from the inside out so what I say is absolutely brilliant! I would think that you could be able to understand that but I suppose you haven't learned the entirety of evilness yet. Mwah, then I shall teach you until everything I say makes as much sense as exploding adorable bunnies are evvvvil." _

"Sandrock, we have to get moving," Quatre bellowed as he moved right in front of his mobile suit. The best strategy was to ignore Sandrock, not that it would stop him.

_"Where are you going?"_ Nataku asked.

"To get Deathscythe. He's incapable of moving himself," Quatre explained.

_"That's a surprise? Barton came through with Yuy just a little while ago and thankfully took the lazy one away. Where is my pilot?"_

She sounded annoyed but slightly anxious about the status of Wufei. Quatre smiled and jumped into Sandrock.

"He has to go get Duo, he also had an unfortunate accident. It definitely confirms that we've underestimated the Cowardly Lions."

_"Pfft Not damn likely considering these morons. Oh yes, and while you all were gone that guy you were sent to kill came through here. While he could have been putting on an elaborate act, he didn't seem to notice that we four Gundams were even here. He just ran out the back in an Aries while screaming for his Mommy." _

_"He was such a delightfully weak little weakling that I almost spoke just to frighten him." _

Nataku scoffed, "_why didn't you?"_

_"Because the scene wasn't seamlessly evil. You have to create an atmosphere of evil before you can take appropriate action. No, I shall get him next time in a perfectly dark hangar and emerge from hellfire! MWHAHAHA."_

"Focus Sandrock. We have to leave," Quatre said as he jerked on the controls. His Gundam almost reluctantly came to life and soon they were off.

Quatre entered the narrow passageway that led back outside. Sandrock paused in the door way and the blonde pilot pursed his lips in thought.

"The hangar is underground and when we did our overall sweep of the place not one of us noticed there being an entrance to get under the base…"

"_Your point?"_

"It think it might be in here…"

_"Hehehe, I understand what you mean. How mildly evil to put a passageway to the underground. I approve."_

Sandrock then moved along the passage slowly and without any prompting from his pilot whatsoever. It was a good thing that Quatre found him funny and didn't mind his unsettling ability to move on his own. The Gundam put his hands on either wall and walked slowly, trying to feel out where this passage could be.

"How are you going to be able to tell?" Quatre asked.

_"I have my ways."_

Quatre thus didn't have any other course then to merely sit and wait to see if Sandrock's search yielded any results.

Oddly enough, the Gundam stopped when they were only a few feet from the opening to the outside.

_"I knew that my senses would not fail me. Mwahaha. It is here." _

Quatre watched as Sandrock turned himself to the right where it looked like his arm sunk directly into blackness. He moved forward and they were sunk into more of the same black. There was an opening in the passage after all. It wasn't particularly obvious but then anyone with a light would have no trouble finding it.

"Good work, Sandrock," Quatre said happily as the Gundam followed the straight passage further underground. It didn't wind but a few times. That was good for the Gundam as Sandrock hadn't used any of his lights. Quatre was so pleased with their progress that he didn't think to ask about them.

They came to a stop before a reinforced, metal door. Sandrock pushed up against it before he felt the wall for some sort of panel or switch to open it.

"Wait a minute, Sandrock. We should be close to the underground hangar so why don't we hear Deathscythe?"

"_Perhaps he's being evilly silent as to try and fool us. Well you can't fool the supreme evil being."_

"But what if…"

"_LALALALALALALALALALALA" _

"Shut the fuck up! Shut up! Shut uuuuup!"

"Nevermind."

Sandrock obviously found the handle to the switch to open up the door. Wufei and Deathscythe's voices rang out quite clearly and loudly, so the door must have been soundproof.

"_Silence cretins. We are here to save you…then blow you up to meet the man on the moon before you succumb to his evil plans!" _Sandrock proclaimed.

Quatre could guess Wufei's expression even from the dark side of the overlarge room. He crouched next to Duo's still unconscious body on the floor. Quatre saw the ruins of another ladder from the station right beside Deathscythe.

"It's about time you got here. I was about to just leave this damn idiot. He keeps yelling," Wufei explained.

"_I'M NOT YELLING. I'M BEING REALLY QUIET SO YOU'RE NOT FOUND OUT. ALSO SO DEATHSCYTHE CAN GET SLEEP SINCE HE LOOKS SO TIRED."_

"Deathscythe? But you're Deathscythe," Quatre said. Wufei hung his head and put his hands over his ears.

"_NO, I'M DUO. HE'S DEATHSCYTHE. THAT'S WHAT HE TOLD ME ANYWAY. SO HOW ARE WE GOING TO GET OUT OF HERE? THIS MAY SURPRISE YOU BUT I CAN'T MOVE. I HAD AN ACCIDENT."_

_"Silence, fool. Can't you see that we're already working on that? This proves that the idiotic cannot truly be evil. I'm sure that the Evil Death that flies around Dracula's castle would be very ashamed to share the same name as this unevill example of a Gundam."_

"First off what you say still doesn't make any sense but for the first and hopefully last time I think that you make some sense," Wufei commented.

Quatre sighed and brought Sandrock to a stop before the decrepit Gundam. His self-inflicted state would have been amusing if the situation didn't have that annoying tinge of tension.

"Uh…well I suppose that you should secure Duo and ride on Sandrock's shoulder while he carries Death out?" the blonde pilot suggested.

Wufei shook his head in annoyance but he didn't say anything more inspiring so it appeared that they would be forced to try Quatre's plan first. Justice-boy unceremoniously picked up the braided pilot and flung him over his shoulder. He moved to the Gundam's foot and waited impatiently as Sandrock debated whether or not to listen to the pilot's commands. Quatre jerked the controls up and down in frustration before he calmed himself and talked lucidly to his Gundam.

"Ahem…Sandrock?"

"_Yes O evil master?" _The mobile suit sounded positively delighted.

"How about obeying my commands and assisting Wufei into getting on your shoulder? Please?"

"_No,"_ Sandrock said with imitation sweetness.

"Why not?"

"_While conformity is the essence of true evil it only applies if you make others conform. My helping would be conforming which means I'm feeding in as a victim of evil rather then a cause of it."_

Wufei stamped his foot. "This bastard is heavy. Just help already."

Quatre sighed and pulled on his bangs. While he had heard Sandrock's voice long before he actually heard it, he couldn't recall having this much trouble with the Gundam before. Perhaps the storm or the binky itself was responsible for the rebellious streak in his Gundam.

"Sandrock I'm not making this optional. We have to get Duo and Deathscythe medical attention. It seems these Cowards are more competent then we originally planned so we need to reconfigure our strategy. I DON'T have time for this right now."

Wufei was visibly surprised, especially by the commanding tone of voice that the usually gullibly gentle pilot employed. Though they were more frequent then ever, Quatre's uncharacteristic outbursts were still shocking.

"_You DARE order me? Who has the evil firepower? I will use it to make my evil plans come to fruition. I don't have any extra evil energy to extend toward other, NON-EVIL matters."_

_"OOOH SANDY SOUNDS MAAAD."_

"He doesn't sound any different to me," Wufei interjected.

"No, he is mad and I don't care," Quatre said.

There was a long pause and a small battle of wills ensued. How it ensued was a mystery as neither pilot nor Gundam made a move and, by all rights, they really weren't in any form of face to face.

"For the loves of Justice, just do something already. This braided mouth is heavier then he looks."

More silence. Quatre's hands tightened on the controls and Sandrock revolved slowly on the spot before tensing and going back to motionless silence. The Chinese pilot moved from one foot to the other impatiently.

"I swear, he is about fifteen pounds of hair alone," Wufei complained.

_"SHH CAN'T YOU SEE THEY'RE IN THE MIDDLE OF SOMETHING?"_

"I don't really care."

Perhaps it was the promise of another hair-pulling conversation between Death and Wufei or maybe it was that Quatre won. Either way, Sandrock finally extended his arm down to the ground and Wufei leapt upon it. He stopped a moment to shift the unconscious pilot to his other shoulder before taking additional hops to reach Sandrock's shoulder. It seemed pointless for the Gundam to assist in the end, especially considering the anti-gravity nature of Justice-boy's jumps. Quatre sighed and patted the control panel to signify a job well done.

"Thank you, Sandrock."

"_SANDY'S JUST A BIG SOFTIE!"_

_"Quiet, ludicrous one. This is merely a part of my most wickedly evil plan. You see, I assisted but I didn't promise to not rock around and do everything in my power to knock the justice-mongering pilot off my shoulder. MWAH. I would also be injuring an injured individual in the process which goes quite well with my additional plan of destroying the imbecilic Gundam and everything he holds dear! MWAHAHAHAHAHA! Sentimental fools!"_

"I suppose we should look at the bright side of things. At least Sandrock's helping at all," Quatre tried.

Wufei sighed and rested his side against the cool surface of the Gundam. Sandrock laughed manically as he grabbed Deathscythe's intact foot and then started dragging him along behind. He made good on his promise too. As soon as they were away from the platform and toward the door, Sandrock took great care to shake and rock around.

_"OW OW OW OW OW OW OW OW"_

_"Mwhahahahahahahahahahahahah"_

"I swear I'm going to kill that damn scientist."


End file.
